The series Shogun makes Emmy Awards history: the fresco about feudal Japan won the award for best drama series on Sunday, September 15, a first for a non-English-language soap opera, and a record number of 18 awards at the ceremony.
The big favorite of the evening with 25 nominations, the American-Japanese series won the top award of this equivalent of the Oscars for American television, facing competitors such as The Crown, Slow Horses Or The Three-Body Problem.
The story of Shogun takes place in feudal Japan in the early 17th century, on the eve of a civil war in a context of power struggle between lords. The sinking of a Dutch ship and the arrival of its navigator, the Englishman John Blackthorne, upset the fragile status quo, in favor of Lord Yoshii Toranaga.
► An unprecedented budget for Disney
Inspired by the eponymous novel by the British James Clavell, a bestseller of the 1970s, Shogun breaks with decades of stereotypical representations of the Japanese archipelago in Western-produced films and television shows. To do this, the Disney-owned FX channel has given the filmmakers the largest budget ever obtained in its history, estimated at $250 million (around €225 million).
► As close as possible to 17th century Japan
In the desire to respect the concern for authenticity as much as possible, the production of Shogun mobilized a team of specialists, including historians, wigmakers and traditional Japanese dancers. They put their know-how at the service of the series, meticulously scrutinizing the sets, costumes and movements of the actors.
Shogun tells a story based on historical facts, accurately transcribing the complexity of the Japanese mentality, in a feudal Japan still very closed to the rest of the world.
► Massive use of subtitles
In Shogunthe Japanese characters are played entirely by actors who speak Japanese. About 70% of the dialogue is therefore in Japanese, a rare occurrence in an American production. The hero of the eponymous novel, the Englishman John Blackthorne, for his part, quickly fades into the background in the series, in favor of the court intrigues and murderous rivalries of the shogunate.
The coronation of Shogun The Emmy Awards also confirms that American audiences can now praise a foreign-language series with a plot that is unfamiliar to them.
► A series filmed entirely in Canada
Despite this assumed and maintained historical loyalty, Shogun was not filmed in Japan but in British Columbia, a Canadian province on the Pacific coast. Its vast forest landscapes helped to reproduce the wild nature of the Japanese archipelago during the samurai era. The sets were built in a vast studio and on a 12-hectare site.
► Two new seasons coming soon
First non-English language soap opera to win the award for best drama series, Shogun was a hit in many countries including the United States, despite its many subtitled dialogues.
Taking advantage of the public success and good reviews, FX and Disney are considering a sequel. The first season will be followed by two additional ones, the broadcast date of which is still unknown.
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