SWORD PLAY

"Shogun," on FX.

- INKOO KANG

"Shögun" is the kind of Hollywood product that assumes a defensive crouch from the outset. The FX series a ten-part adaptation of James Clavell's best-selling 1975 doorstopper, which centers on an English sailor who lands in seventeenth-century Japan and rises through its samurai ranks-was announced six years ago with reassurances from John Landgraf, the network's chairman, that this version would be au courant with modern sensibilities. "It's not an easy thing to get right," Landgraf admitted, adding that the show's creative team would consult experts in "feudal Japanese culture" and feature a cast of "almost entirely Japanese actors." (A previous miniseries, from 1980, hadn't bothered to subtitle the Japanese dialogue: producers felt that if the British protagonist, John Blackthorne, couldn't comprehend what was being said then neither should American audiences.) These production details were intended to distinguish "Shōgun" from the many Western films and TV shows that have been made under the assumption that, while Asian aesthetics are worthy as spectacle, Asian people do not merit understanding, identification, or individuation or, in the most egregious cases, any presence at all.