Purely Joyful Movie!

hyped garbage

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Okay, so it was very late, and I was very tired, but I did find this entertaining, and in the end, that's all I was looking for when I was channel surfing last night.I admit that some of the accents were poor, but not any worse than Tom Cruise's 'Oirish' in Far and Away, and many other Hollywood attempts I can't be bothered to list at the moment. And though not Oscarworthy, this certainly wasn't the worst acting I've seen. I may have enjoyed it far more than it deserved, because I'm feeling really homesick for HK at the mo, and all the little things like the materials used for some of the men's waistcoats and even the skyline (wow, how much things have changed since they filmed that!) made me smile. What also made me smile was the way *SPOILER*Dirk always seemed to get wounded in the same arm....you'd think after a few fights he'd be all 'What are you doing with that gun? Watch my arm. Watch my arm. Oh, not again!' */SPOILER* I have to confess, I didn't catch all of it - only about an hour and a half - from about 5mins before *SPOILER* the fight on the boat*/SPOILER* to the end, but what I did see kept me up and wanting to see more until the end, and isn't that what filmmakers want us to do?Not the best film I've ever seen, but certainly not the worst.

At first I was sceptical - I've read and loved Tai-Pan, for one - but soon I was sucked in by the story and couldn't stop watching till I'd finished the show.Admittedly, it's much less of a movie than Tai-Pan is of a book. But the book is a giant among books, and the show is still a good show. Those who have read the book, rather than savaging it for its divergence from the book (which, in any case, would require a mini-series to do its layering and complexity justice, not a 2-hour show) should treat it as a kind of visual accompaniment to the story - good casting, good handling of some powerful scenes. Alright, they were much more powerful in the book, but it's not all the time that readers of a splendid book get the opportunity to see a capable visual incarnation that does justice to the characters, at least, if not to the plot. Maybe if the show had been titled "Selected Scenes from Tai-Pan" rather than "Tai-Pan" it would have been better received by purists. As "Selected Scenes" it's really very good. As "Tai-Pan", maybe not so good - for some of the most vivid scenes from the book are never realised in the show - like the marvellous dim sum negotiations and the whole subplot about the malaria.What I'm trying to say is it did treat the subject material well, although obviously it couldn't pack everything which makes us love the book into just two hours. In an adaptation of a book, when you can recognise each character instantly before the character's name is mentioned it's always a good sign - where there's good casting, it's a sign that it's a sensitive adaptation, and this was the case with Tai-Pan. I thought Bryan Brown was very good as Dirk Struan; I'm not Scottish, so I couldn't tell that his accent was as fake as many others seem to think it. Tyler and Gorth Brock (and Quance, Culum, Mary, etc) were exactly as I'd imagined them, and Joan Chen was not half bad as May-may.I was genuinely moved by some scenes which proved Leonard Maltin's comment about 'sledgehammer subtlety' wrong. **MILD SPOILER HERE** And though I had my reservations initially about how they were going to pull off the episode where May-may makes the mistake of dressing incongrously in European fashion and all that follows, I thought it was handled very well.I can see how those who haven't read the book would find it laughable, though, because due to the compression of the plot you don't really get to know the characters and understand their motivations from scratch. Some of Clavell's magnificent dialogue from the book might sound weird in the show, or lacking in punch, for those without a prior acquaintance of the book, because of this lack of emotional set-up. That's why I think it's best for those who have read the book, who already know the characters and can watch them fully-fledged, so to speak, as the show doesn't spend time introducing the audience to the characters.Perhaps the reason that fans of James Clavell's books are so vociferous in their criticism of this show, sometimes, is because they are acclimatised to splendid, detailed and heartfelt adaptations of so many of his other books - the Shogun mini-series, the Noble House mini-series and the King Rat film. Why, Clavell fans are really so fortunate already when it comes to screen adaptations! :) If we lowered our expectations a little, we'd see that Tai-Pan, too, is not that bad a treatment of the book at all!

I dont have much to say about this movie..It had a lot going the right way, until you hear Bryan Browns scotland accent HORRIBLE and ANNOYING ! I actually noticed he's got one look on his face through the whole movie..the type of look you see on a person who is avoiding looking straight in the cameraI saw this movie after I saw Shogun, so I had my hopes up I guess ! Go see Shogun or read the book forget about this crappy Kurosawa wannabe movieA lot of nice scenery and photography, but the rest sucks swedish meatballs..I feel sorry for the people who had to see this in the cinema and watch the whole thing. My generation had Pearl Harbor so... !!!

Adventure film based on James Clavell's novel about a 19th-century trade baron who makes his headquarters in Hong Kong. This is the 3rd worst motion picture I've ever seen in a theater (behind Rebel and Dune.) It seemed that the original intention was to have made this as a TV mini series and not for theatrical release. One point in the film Bryan Browns character Dirk Struan tells another male character "When you make dung you'll wipe your arse with paper". The entire theater crowd erupted in laughter for about five minutes and it appeared that the line was not intended to be humorous. That's how bad this movie was.