Tai-Pan (1986)

Director:

Daryl Duke

Writers:

John Briley (writer)
James Clavell (novel)

Release Date:

7 November 1986 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure

Tagline:

There can only be one.

Plot:

Tai-Pan is Chinese for "supreme leader". This is the man with real power to his hands. And such a Tai-Pan...

Plot Keywords:

Hong Kong | China | Hyphen In Title | Female Nudity | Historical

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Bryan Brown	...	Dirk Struan
Joan Chen	...	May-May
John Stanton	...	Tyler Brock
Tim Guinee	...	Culum Struan
Bill Leadbitter	...	Gorth Brock
Russell Wong	...	Gordon Chen
Katy Behean	...	Mary Sinclair
Kyra Sedgwick	...	Tess Brock
Janine Turner	...	Shevaun Tillman
Norman Rodway	...	Aristotle Quance
John Bennett	...	Orlov
Derrick Branche	...	Vargas
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Vic Armstrong	...	Drunken Sailor
Dickey Beer	...	Brecks´s Crew
Chuang Cheng
Kuan Tai Chen	...	Pirate
Shu Chen
Rosemarie Dunham
Robert Easton
Richard Foo
Nicholas Gecks
Carol Gillies
Pat Gorman	...	British Merchant 2
Michael C. Gwynne
Billy Horrigan	...	Brecks´s Crew
Denise Kellogg	...	Nude Model
Barbara Keogh
Lisa Lu
Bronco McLoughlin	...	Brecks´s Crew
Bert Remsen
Patrick Ryecart
Rob Spendlove
Patty Toy
Jie Zhang

Also Known As:

James Clavell's Tai-Pan (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

127 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Sweden:15 | Australia:M | Singapore:M18 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

China

Company:

De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG)

Trivia:

The film was originally announced by MGM in 1967-8 and was to be directed by Michael Anderson, but after severe operating losses the film was one of a number of expensive projects the new management at the studio dropped as too costly. In the 70s Steve McQueen agreed to play the lead for a then-record $10m and was paid an advance of $1m. When the producers were unable to pay the second installment on time, he dropped out, keeping the $1m he had already been paid. In 1980 Roger Moore agreed to play the lead, even going as far as to start to grow a beard for the part before that version fell through as well.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: In a scene, set in 1841, several of the ladies were wearing bright mauve outfits. That would have been most unlikely for the wives of middle class traders at that time as the color purple was prohibitively expensive before the invention of analine dyes in London - in 1856. By 1870 these gaudy colors had become so cheap and commonplace that it became a status symbol to mimic the subtler, paler colors of the pre analine dye days.

Movie Connections:

Followed by "Noble House" (1988)

The Founding Of Hong Kong

Tai-Pan was probably too ambitious an undertaking for a film as short as just over 2 hours. Maybe a mini-series would have been the answer, but Tai-Pan certainly had the potential to be an oriental Gone With The Wind.

Unrealized potential though it is. The screenplay made many references to previous events in the novel that are not shown here. We do know there's one nasty rivalry going on between Bryan Brown and John Stanton who both rose to wealth in the China trade like the protagonists in an Edna Ferber novel.

Bryan Brown is the Far East version of Rhett Butler. He's built the family fortune on legal trade and illegal trade in opium. Not that opium was unknown before the British and other European powers got there, but they did turn it into a thriving business. When the Chinese government objected, the European powers took nibbles out of a prostrate and weakened state.

One of those nibbles the British took was Hong Kong, spoils from the Opium War of 1841. Brown like Margaret Mitchell's Rhett Butler or the hero of many Edna Ferber books is the guy who builds what became one of the busiest trading centers on the globe.

Unlike his rival Stanton, Brown's wife left him and took their small son back to the United Kingdom. Brown didn't mourn he took up with some Chinese women, they were pawns in various business negotiations. He got a son, Russell Wong, from one of them.

Things get interesting when his other son arrives from Great Britain played by Tim Guinee. He's a rather uptight Victorian youth who is not pleased with the debauchery he finds and his father's part in it.

Tai-Pan is exquisitely photographed with the climatic typhoon scene very well done indeed. A better screenplay would have been needed to tell this epic story.