Ok so he says it's ok to build the ship, but then he will burn that one also. And he will tell him why when the time is right. He says his life is his destiny. I don't get it. Does that mean when the second ship is completed he is going to kill him? Does anybody understand the ending of this flick??? It ends to abruptly and does not give all the details.
Toranaga is basically saying that the Anjin-san can build his ship and when he does he will burn it to keep him where he is. I have never seen the movie but read the book at least 30 times. I am reading it again right now in fact. The relationship between the Anjin-san and Toranaga evolved into a kind of friendship even though Toranaga recognized the danger the Anjin-san represented to the entire Japanese empire if he was ever allowed to get a ship under him. Toranaga wanted to keep Anjin-san around because of his intelligence and abilities. Another reason he burned the ship was to protect the Anjin-san from the Catholics. They knew that without a ship Anjin -san was pretty powerless to stop their trade and to stop the Black Ship and all its riches. As long as Anjin-san was landbound he couldn't hurt them. They had tried to kill him many times and failed, once Toranaga burned his ship and removed him as a threat there was no longer any reason to continue trying to kill him.
shareToranaga is also forcing him to stay because Toranaga needs a friend.
shareAnd when you get down to it, Blackthorne is better off in Japan. There he has money, power and status, whereas in England he's just another sailor. At least, that's what William Adams (the real Blackthorne) worked out!
shareYeah, but look what happened to Will Adams after Ieyasu died. His son treated Adams like dirt and his Japanese wife died ; Adams' "power and status" were dependent on the favor of the ruling bigwig. As tempting as it may have seemed at the time, Adams would have done better to return to England (which, in contrast to Blackthorne, he did have a chance to do and decided not to). He may very well have been celebrated there as the first Englishman to live in Japan and participate in its history.
shareI've never read the book, so I don't know the background on this but Blackthorne says:
'In my country, I am a lord...'. Maybe he did have power and status back home.
'You can wish in one hand and crap in the other...' - mick
Actually, as a pilot, Blackthorn was reasonably well-off in the England of the time, too. His skills and knowledge commanded high prices, though he faced a lot of danger, too. You're right, in that he wasn't a nobleman in England, but he could have been knighted, if the Queen deemed his services worthy of such. Remember, he's a contemporary to Sir Francis Drake and other English explorer-sailor-entrepreneurs of the day.
shareAs the priest told him - You will never leave Japan. The mere threat that Blackthorne could be let out on the seas is enough for Torinoga to get the politics the way he wants them. He feels about Anjin-san the same way he feels about all his other vassals. Machevelli would be proud. So let him build his ship and if need be he can burn it again blame somebody else and aim Blackthorne at somebody else. Or let him keep it but insure that Anjin-san comes back to Yedo if I didn't know better I think that Torinoga and Vito Corelone are related
shareSimply put, Toranag needed one true friend. He couldn't be friends with any japanese, because of all the treachery and power plays. He couldnt be friends with the Portugese, for the same reasons. He could befriend the Anjin-san, because Blackthorne was, at heart, guileless, naieve, and easily manipulated.
shareYou pretty much nailed it.. except I'd disagree that Blackthorn was naieve and easily manipulated.. he was very smart, and knew exactly what to do, and how and when to do it.. Toranaga befriended him, and made him his aide, because of all the things he could learn about the outside world from Blackthorne, which is why he let him built another ship in the final episode, but then planned to destroy it.. Toranaga needed to keep him around.. forever..
The Encore Channels ran the entire six-part series this week, and I'm currently recording / digitizing to .mp4 files, all six episodes, babk-to-back, commercial-free, as is everything Encore runs.. it looks like it was filmed last week, so it was probably perhaps maybe digitally restored..
I thought the narrator's voice sounded familiar.. I said to myself, "that sure sounds like Orson Welles".. and sure enough, I came here to look at the trivia page for the mini-series, and the occasional narrator WAS Orson Welles..
The actress who played Mirako is one of the most beautiful Japanese women I have ever seen.. {{spoiler}}.. I literally cried when she was killed by the exposion in the final episode, and during her ornate cremation funeral..
Overall, this is probably one of my favorite network mini-series of all time.. no, there are no sub-titles, but everything is either translated by Mirako, or one of the priests, or the evil Captain of the black ship, or Rodriguez.. so between the translations, and the action, the whole thing should be easily understood by an astute viewer, such that it didn't really need any English sub-titles..
I'm sure others will disagree, but I thought Richard Chamberlain was fantastic throughout.. one of the best films he's ever done..
Just my opinions, but you're welcome to buy them.. :-) ..
I agree with you -- Chamberlain was great. I think it's the best work he's ever done.
As for Blackthorne...he's as clever and unpredictable as Toranaga, so who knows? Even if the second ship was burned, I think he could figure out a way to leave Japan, if he really wanted to!
Yes, I agree that Chamberlain did well in the role of Blackthorne. I'm usually hyper-critical of actors who lack the proper accent and can't carry a role, but in this series Richard Chamberlain was believable as John Blackthorne.
shareWhen Toragana says "we will laugh it you and I", he is cementing their bargain. He does need a friend, Blackthorne is smart enough to realize that he is better off there. The respect for both cultures in contrast is intriguing.
shareGot a story for you.. my brother is 4 years older than me, and always had a nifty way of explaining a song lyric, or a plot twist in a movie. He had read the book before we sat down to watch the mini-series the first time it appeared, and his narration was the only thing that kept me in the game as far as understanding the weird customs and subtleties. Next time we watched it on TV (few years later), Orson Welles did a voice-over narrative, apparently because few North Americans could follow the plot with all its Oriental sub-text. I want to tell you that Welles' narrative was almost word-for-word what my brother had related to me a few years earlier. Scary. I recall pondering whether my brother had sent a script to the Producers. Not bad for a gifted amateur, eh?
He said Toranaga would go on burning boats as a long as Anjin-San chose to build them. Anjin-San was his trump card - he ain't goin' nowhere!
Ever wonder what Simon/Garfunkel meant when they said 'Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?' Drop me a line and I will tell you (although that one's not a real toughy).
:-) canuckteach (--:
The ending caught me by surprise. I rented the 5-dvd set at the public library. I was quite enjoying it for the most part.
I was finishing the 4th disc and it ended with the bit about Toronaga and his men taking 40,000 heads etc. I grabbed the 5th disc
and eagerly pushed it in. To my dismay - this disc was extra features. The series was already over !
'You can wish in one hand and crap in the other...' - mick
Well I understood the ending though it did in a cinematic way end sort of abruptly- I had first looked over the 5-disc set I borrowed from my library and knew the 5th disc was extras. But what a great epic miniseries it was and it still holds up well despite its age and the limits in its budget (though it was an expensive TV movie for that era, and filmed on location). A shame they didn't have more big battle scenes for example. But still a fine and fascinating drama.
shareBummer about the ones I rented at the library, the cases only had pictures and no words on any of them other than the Disc #.
I was totally unprepared, however I did like the ending really, just wasn't ready for it.
'You can wish in one hand and crap in the other...' - mick
I might have also researched the DVD set at Amazon to see how much it was and then decided to see if I could borrow it from my library system and check it out before possibly buying. After all I hadn't seen the miniseries since 1980 so I wanted to be sure first! I did find out a lot of info about the DVD set thru Amazon and the web before I ended up borrowing it. Frankly just for the cost alone and thinking about how many times will I really be watching them I don't buy big DVD sets.
shareSo Anjinsan never leaves Japan? Couldn't he just leave on one of the Catholic or Portuguese ships or stow away on them if he had to?
http://www.happierabroad.com - Your guide to love and happiness beyond America
Nope I think he was basically being kept prisoner by Toranaga to live out the rest of his life in Japan. Did you read any of the replies to the original post here?????
shareReal-life William Adams did own Red Seal trade ships, which received special permits to trade around Japan. He even left Japan a few times, although he always returned to Japan afterwards.
It was clear that in his mind, William Adams the Englishman was long dead. He had nothing to return to in England, probably didn't miss what he left behind anyway, and by then he loathed the mere fact of being around Westerners visiting Japan, even the English ones.
"The latter part of his life was spent in the service of the English trading company. He undertook a number of voyages to Siam in 1616 and Cochin China in 1617 and 1618, sometimes for the English East India Company, sometimes for his own account. He is recorded in Japanese sources as the owner of a Red Seal Ship of 500 tons."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adams_%28sailor%29#Participation_in_Asian_trade
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_seal_ships
So why didn't Toranaga let Blackthorne have his ship? Blackthorne's plan was to take the black ship, become rich, and then all the power would go to Toranaga. He told his girlfriend to tell Toranaga about his plan. Remember? Why didn't Toranaga agree with that plan, which would have put him in power?
I don't understand many events at the end, and will start a thread about it.
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What I didn't get is why Blackthorne went around telling everyone (Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese) that he planned to take the Black Ship the first chance he got. That tipped his hand and sealed his fate. He was strong and brave and forthright, but it was obvious he had absolutely no capacity for politics or scheming or intrigue.
This made him putty in the hands of everyone around him.
You may walk on the beach, you may swim in the ocean... under SWAT team surveillance, of course.
So why didn't Toranaga let Blackthorne have his ship? Blackthorne's plan was to take the black ship, become rich, and then all the power would go to Toranaga. He told his girlfriend to tell Toranaga about his plan. Remember? Why didn't Toranaga agree with that plan, which would have put him in power?Because the Portuguese controlled the trade between China and Japan. Take the Black Ship and make Portugal into an enemy, and that trade goes away, and Japan couldn't afford to do without it.
I doubt the Portuguese would want him to let other English or Dutch merchants know about the route to the Japans as they were called in the movie. And of course the Catholics were none to friendly towards the Protestants back then. So either way you look at it, money or religion neither group was likely to help Blackthorne get away from Japan.
shareAlso, although they didn't do this historically, I think Toronaga wanted to learn how to build ships and navigate in the European style, in defense of Japan's culture. Imagine what a coup it would have been had he been able to sail a Japanese-built ship to England and say "Hello" to Queen Elizabeth I. Plus, if the Catholics got too out of hand, he could threaten to release Blackthorne on the sea with a ship and a bunch of samurai to harass their shipping. And, I think he just liked him.
shareI haven't seen Shogun in 30 years, now I finally did and I can swear that I remember another ending, in which Ichido and Toranaga were sitting at a beach, discussing the end of the war.... but maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, this is what I really wanted to say; Fujikosama is so, so incredibly beautiful. Anjin-san, stop been so mariko and go for her, u fool!!!
share