Jerry London, who directed the 1980 NBC adaptation of Shōgun, has dismissed last year’s award-winning FX version as “not entertaining for an American audience.”
Last September, Shōgun took home 18 Emmys to shatter the record for the amount of prizes taken home for a single season of television.
It was similarly fêted at the Golden Globes, where it swept the awards for television drama.
However, one person who wasn’t impressed by the series was London, who was nominated for an Emmy and won a Directors Guild Award for his own nine-hour adaptation of James Clavell’s 1975 novel.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, London argued that the new version “is not entertaining for an American audience.”
He continued: “It’s completely different from the one I did. Mine was based on the love story of Shogun between Blackthorne and Mariko, and this new one is based on Japanese history, and it’s more about Toranaga, who was the Shogun.
“It’s very technical and very difficult for an American audience to get their grips into it. I’ve talked to many people that have watched it, and they said, ‘I had to turn it off because I don’t understand it.’ So the filmmakers of the new one really didn’t care about the American audience.”
London argued that the 2024 adaptation was more concerned with its reception in Japan, saying: “They made it basically for Japan, and I was happy about it because I didn’t want my show to be copied. I think I did such a great job, and it won so many accolades, that I didn’t want them to copy it, which they didn’t do.
“But the new one is funny because everybody I talked to said, ‘I don’t understand it. What’s it all about?’ I watched the whole thing. It’s very difficult to stick with. It won all the awards because there were no big shows against it. There was not too much competition.”
London admitted he had hoped the new version might reinvigorate interest in his 1980 adaptation, which starred Richard Chamberlain in the role later taken by Cosmo Jarvis.
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“It was disappointing,” said London. “There wasn’t too much said about mine. Also, the new one has basically just one British actor in it, and frankly, he didn’t have the charisma that Richard Chamberlain had.”
In a four-star review of the 2024 version for The Independent, critic Nick Hilton wrote that the series could be considered the “new Game of Thrones.”
He added: “This well-paced and considered saga will reward grown-up viewers and prove that there’s still room for a historical epic among the elves, dragons and zombies of big-budget telly.”
