Product Description

Studio: Peace Arch Home Entertain Release Date: 10/24/2006 Run time: 127 minutes Rating: R

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10258 in DVD
• Brand: PEACE ARCH HOME ENTERTAINMENT
• Released on: 2006-10-24
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 127 minutes

Customer Reviews

Hong Kong early 1800's
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

The birth of Hong Kong
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.

Short Changed
I just saw the movie for the first time from HBO. I figured this had to be like the cut down version they sold of Shogun for a while. But what I'm reading here it apparently isn't. I agree completely that they really short changed this movie by cutting it up like this. You can tell there had to be more because the movie jumped from place to place without much flow. I would really like to see a version that I believe was originally a mini series. I'm pretty sure I give it a 5 star rating then. It had so much going for it much like Shogun. I hope someone decides to restore the original as part of a set from Shogun to King Rat.

I'm amazed that Joan Chen didn't make it bigger. She's really damn good, and very pretty to boot...