Trivia / Asian Saga

• Channel Hop: The adaptations of the novels changed studios with King Rat being produced by Columbia Pictures, Shogun being produced by Paramount Television, Tai-Pan and Noble House being produced by De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, though Shogun and Noble House aired on NBC.
• Colbert Bump: The 2024 adaptation of Shōgun reignited interest for both that specific book and the Saga as a whole. Hell, it even brought people back to the mostly now forgotten 1980 adaptation.
• Creator Backlash: Tai-Pan director Daryl Duke admitted in hindsight that the 1986 film adaptation would've worked better as a miniseries.
• Died During Production: The series was allegedly supposed to continue with a book covering Japan in the early 90s, but Clavell died in 1993, not long after Gai-Jin was published.
• Fake Brit: In the Shogun miniseries, American actor Richard Chamberlain plays Englishman John Blackthorne.
• Fake Nationality: In the Shogun miniseries, the Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish characters are all played by English actors with the odd Pole (Vladek Sheybal as Captain Ferreira.)
• Newbie Boom: Both adaptations of Shogun caused a significant spike in interest in the Saga. The 2024 one is particularly notorious, since the Saga was dormant for over 30 years, and suddenly it's again in the centre of attention.
• What Could Have Been:
  • James Clavell wanted Sean Connery to play Blackthorne for the miniseries but he turned it down due to not wanting repeat the same experience in filming in Japan as he disliked filming You Only Live Twice in the country. Roger Moore and Albert Finney were also considered.
  • While most of the series have been adapted, only Gai-Jin and Whirlwind have never gotten adaptations of their own though they were close to getting adapted as TV miniseries on NBC as the latter was mooted for such after the Noble House miniseries and the former was planned for the 1994-95 season with an All-Star Cast comprising of Edward Woodward, Diana Rigg, Ben Cross, Tim Curry and Roddy McDowall with Richard Chamberlain (who played Blackthorne in the 1980 adaptation of Shogun) doing the narration but production was scrapped a week before filming due to rising production costs and an earthquake that hit the intended filming locations.

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