Tai-Pan

first, inject countless clichés and stereotypes, populate the cast with some well-knowns, and add some 'tit'illation.

and wait for the box office receipts to pour in!!!

I am very very disappointed in this film which I purchased on VHS. its one of those I *know* I wont be watching a 2nd time.

it meanders, gap toothed, and those stereotypes just weigh it down till it sinks in Hong Kong harbor. and of course, top it all off with a quickie pan of modern day Hong Kong.

some good acting but not enough to overcome the numerous shortcomings.

I didn't read the book but Im sure it far outclasses this quickie 2 + hour 'featurette'. is there a Hollywood ombudsman you can call up to you know, get your money back or something?

Im glad IMDb exists so that duds like this can be outed and red-flagged.

Last night on Turner Classic Movies, I saw a trailer from the sixties called "Lion Power" about all the big projects audiences could expect from MGM in the months and years ahead. Included among them were clips from "Far From the Madding Crowd" and "Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?", plus mention of "Where Eagles Dare" with Richard Burton (not mentioning Clint Eastwood, as perhaps he wasn't signed yet), "Ice Station Zebra", and "2001: A Space Odyssey" with very early-form artwork of its making. Among the many films mentioned in passing near the end of the trailer was "James Clavell's 'Tai-Pan'", yet no earlier version of the film was ever made. Just how long was this thing in the making, and what casts were potentially involved at different times? It would be interesting to see the planned history of such a movie that took so long to finally get made, bad as it reportedly is.

As a movie reviewer for my college newspaper, I often was told: "You've got a great job, you get paid to go to movies." My standard answer was: "It's not that great - I had to sit through 'Tai-Pan'." The only movie that has given me more pain was "Ishtar."

I agree with other comments that this should have been a miniseries but on HBO not commercial TV. The scenes with the various women would have been destroyed with censorship. I believe that it did give an accurate "feel" to the times and events depicted.

Upon viewing this I immediately ordered the book ( I had ignored it due to some disappointment at Nobel House ). Also bit the bullet and ordered Shogun the miniseries. Mr. Clavell's work s are to be appreciated even in movies that fall short. I do wish Bryan Brown had a better accent but Joan Chen mimicked it perfectly.

The supporting cast both western and oriental were excellent. Also the "few" ships used were great. Now I want Noble House on DVD.

I found this movie to follow the novel pretty closely, considering of course that the novel is about 900 pages and the movie is only two hours! While not of the same outstanding caliber of adaptation as the Shogun miniseries, it nevertheless manages to generate some excitement and give a flavor for the happenings of that period, during which the colony of Hong Kong was founded.

Joan Chen was especially good as Mai-Mai, and all the other parts were at least adequately cast. The locations, sets and production values were of uniformly good quality. The only thing lacking was enough time to tell a story this long and complex--in such a short production one only has time to hit the high points of the plot. But it was enjoyable nevertheless.