Shogun

The MiniSeries Shogun is my all time favorite program. It is a romantisied account of the adventures of the first Englishman to reach Japan. The main character John Blackthorne is based on the real life person William Adams who was the only non Japanese ever to become a samurai. He was also a feudal lord in Japan ( called a Daimyo ) and the first Admiral of the Japanese Navy.

The acting is excellent and something which I found interesting and unusual about this series is that one of the ways that the movie uses to put you into the mind of the main character is that as he doesn't know any Japanese when he arrives there are no subtitles when the characters are speaking Japanese.

As I said earlier my all time favorite program and one I wish could be seen by more people more often. I did buy the series.