Certain films look much older than they actually are. That can mean two things – either the film makers deliberately took great pains to copy style and content characteristic of certain period of history; or they inadvertently made their film look hopelessly dated and anachronistic. Tai-Pan, 1986 period epic directed by Daryl Duke, is an example of the latter.
The film is based on the eponymous novel by James Clavell, part of his Asian Saga. The plot begins in 1839 in Chinese port city of Canton where Scottish merchant Dirk Struan (played by Bryan Brown) enjoys the unofficial title of “Tai-Pan”, the leader of British business community in the city. Struan and his peers have made most of their fortune by opium trade, which is something imperial Chinese government wants to stop. Foreign merchants are banished from Canton and their opium seized and destroyed. British government is lobbied by aggrieved businessmen to react by launching First Opium War. In 1841 British have taken possession of Hong Kong, relatively small and poor island which nevertheless has perfect natural harbour and represents perfect location to conduct trade with mainland China. Struan came there with the desire to become “Tai-Pan” again and rebuild his business empire. However, he must struggle with his arch-rival and former nemesis Brock (played by John Stanton). The conflict between the two is complicated with arrival of Cullum Struan (played by Tim Guinee), Dirk’s son who falls in love with Brock’s daughter Tess (played by Kyra Sedgwick).
Like many Clavell’s novels, Tai-Pan was bestseller and the attempts to have it adapted to big screen began in late 1960s. However, it was only success of Shogun, television miniseries based on another Clavell’s novel, which allowed the project to actually start. Comparisons between the two point to fatal mistake of Tai-Pan, which is adapted as old school “larger than life” Hollywood epic, like those that used to be made in 1950s or 1960s. With cinematography of Jack Cardiff and bombastic (and pretentiously sounding) score by Maurice Jarre, this film features a lot of content which was expected of such films – spectacular mass scenes featuring a lot of exotic costumes and period detail (with only little bits of nudity suggesting that the film was made in later era, without strict censorship). Unfortunately, feature film format appears not to be suitable for novel with rich content like Clavell’s. As a result, many characters are tragically underdeveloped, misused and simply come and go without any explanation. Australian actor Bryan Brown in title role tries his best, delivering quite credible Scottish accent, while his compatriot John Stanton plays truly sinister villain. On the other hand, Tim Guinee is not particularly convincing in the role of protagonist’s idealist son, while Chinese actress Joan Chen struggles with terrible dialogue in the role of protagonist’s concubine. Tai-Pan flopped at the box office and sank into obscurity, although it had earned place in history books as first major English language production shot on location in Communist China. Daryl Duke was aware of the flaws of his film and later expressed opinion that it could have been much better as television miniseries. In 1988 Tai-Pan received a sort of sequel in the form of Noble House, miniseries based on Clavell’s novel that depicts events century and half later than those depicted in this film.
RATING: 4/10 (++)
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