Tai-Pan

It's worth pointing out that I came to this film having read James Clavell's excellent novel, TAI-PAN, on which this is based. If I hadn't read the book beforehand, I probably would have enjoyed this adaptation a lot more.

Sadly, I was left feeling that the filmed TAI-PAN is a crushing disappointment, purely because it cuts so very much out of the story. The whole background is missing, the Triad stuff, the politics, the trade with the Chinese. The story is reduced to the human relationships and particularly the family rivalries between the main characters, but there was so much more to it than that.

I do understand that films are very different to books and that adaptations have to cut material out, but TAI-PAN has a two hour running time and a lot of it is slow-paced. If it had told events at a much faster pace, it would have been able to include a lot more of the details and subtleties that are missing here. As it is, there are elements of greatness - plus the novelty of seeing Bryan Brown in a leading role - but it could have been so much more. A miniseries would suffice better, I think.

Very average epic about the birth of the Hong Kong colony , being and overerblown and lousily paced retelling . A disjointed mess set in 19th Century when a powerful lord has to escape from Canton due to "Opium War" and to go a coastal location to be founded the city of Hong Kong . The chief trader , Tai Pan: Bryan Brown , dreams of establishing a colony of commerce to be callled Hong Kong and , eventually , he gets it .

This in an inferior, pretentious epic , whose basis for the film is the James Clavell's novel of the same name, regarding some very free historic events about the origin of the Hong Kong colony, including some really ludricous characters . As a Scottish trader : Bryan Brown and his beautiful mistress : Joan Chen are the main roles in this confusing attempt to dramatize the story of Hong Kong's foundation and development into an important trading port . Along the way the principal plot is mingled with loving conflicts , personal vengeances and ambition for possession of Hong Kong port . It packs love stories , violent confrontation , fights , brief nudism and anything else . The film goes wrong due to too many subplots and roles are badly introduced in a short time to do justice to the much better novel ; Tai Pan . This mixed bag plays like a TV miniseries chopped from seven hours to two . Along with main starring : Bryan Brown, Joan Chen , appearing familiar faces as newcomers : Tim Guinee, Janine Turner , Kyra Sedgwick and veteran support cast as Bert Remsen and John Stanton .

Here stands out the moving and spectacular musical score by the great John Barry, as well as colorful cinematography by prestigious cameraman Jack Cardiff . Shot on location in Hong Kong and considred to be the first American production completely filmed in China . The motion picture was regularly directed by Daryl Duke and it failed totally in the world box office , in spite of the big budget financed by Raffaela de Laurentiis , Dino's daughter. Daryl Duke was a craftsman who usually directed episodes of notorious TV series and occassionally made some movies as "I heard the Owl call my name" , " Payday" , "President's plane is missing" , "Silent Partner" and " The Thornbirds", among others . Rating 4.5/10 , a middlingly made movie .

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.