Product Details

• Actors: Bryan Brown, Joan Chen, John Stanton, Tim Guinee, Bill Leadbitter
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, EP, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Anchor Bay
• VHS Release Date: February 15, 1996
• Run Time: 127 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304004540
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,069 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The birth of Hong Kong, March 21, 2008

By 

Roger J. Buffington (Huntington Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tai Pan (DVD)

This film is a greatly condensed telling of Clavell's novel Tai Pan. As such, it necessarily leaves out a great deal of the detail and many of the sub-plots contained in the excellent novel. This was unavoidable because the novel is intricate and complex. I am not sure that even a mini-series would have successfully encompassed the scope of the novel.

With that caveat, I enjoyed this film a lot more than I thought I would. The acting is generally quite good, and the story, while truncated, is coherent and interesting. This is the story of the birth of Hong Kong as an improbable British colony and outpost on Chinese soil. It is further the story of the rivalry between two great British trading houses: Noble House, and Brock & Sons. The latter conflict, which is more or less a bitter clan feud between two Scottish families, is well-told and interesting, and not too far off-track from the story told in the novel.

Within its necessary limitations, I thought that this was a pretty good film, well worth watching.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad at all despite compressed plot, May 7, 2004

By 

Joanna (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tai-Pan [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Admittedly, this is much less of a movie than Tai-Pan is of a book. But the book is a giant among books, and the show is still a good show. Those who have read the book, rather than savaging it for its divergence from the book (which, in any case, would require a mini-series to do its layering and complexity justice, not a 2-hour show) should treat it as a kind of visual accompaniment to the story - good casting, good handling of some powerful scenes. Alright, they were much more powerful in the book, but it's not all the time that readers of a splendid book get the opportunity to see a capable visual incarnation that does justice to the characters, at least, if not to the plot. Maybe if the show had been titled "Selected Scenes from Tai-Pan" rather than "Tai-Pan" it would have been better received by purists.

What I'm trying to say is it did treat the subject material well, although obviously it couldn't pack everything which makes us love the book into just two hours. In an adaptation of a book, when you can recognise each character instantly before the character's name is mentioned it's always a good sign - where there's good casting, it's a sign that it's a sensitive adaptation, and this was the case with Tai-Pan. I thought Bryan Brown was very good as Dirk Struan; I'm not Scottish, so I couldn't tell that his accent was as fake as many others seem to think it.

I can see how those who haven't read the book would find it laughable, though, because due to the compression of the plot you don't really get to know the characters and understand their motivations from scratch. Some of Clavell's magnificent dialogue from the book might sound weird in the show, or lacking in punch, for those without a prior acquaintance of the book, because of this lack of emotional set-up. That's why I think it's best for those who have read the book, who already know the characters and can watch them fully-fledged, so to speak, as the show doesn't spend time introducing the audience to the characters.

Perhaps the reason that fans of James Clavell's books are so vociferous in their criticism of this show, sometimes, is because they are acclimatised to splendid, detailed and heartfelt adaptations of so many of his other books - the Shogun mini-series, the Noble House mini-series and the King Rat film. Why, Clavell fans are really so fortunate already when it comes to screen adaptations! :) If we lowered our expectations a little, we'd see that Tai-Pan, too, is not that bad a treatment of the book at all!

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hong Kong early 1800's, February 9, 2008

By 

Gunner (Smyrna, Georgia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tai Pan (DVD)

Tai-Pan DVD


Tai-Pan is based on James Clavell's novel. It is a saga of 19th century Hong Kong and a noble hero (Bryan Brown), a dastardly villain (John Stanton) and a woman, of course

Recommended for James Cavell's fans (but the book TaiPan is better IMHO) and fans of early Hong Kong.

Gunner February, 2008