Tai Pan (1986)

Based on the James Clavell s best-selling novel Tai Pan is an unforgettable adventure during the early China trade when epic adventures carved dynasties out of barren rock and the opium trade pitted father against son and friends against one another. For trader Dirk Struan the silver and opium exchange is almost impossible to resist but everything comes to an action-packed head when he is forced to choose between the ones he loves and profit beyond his imagination.System Requirements:Runnign Time: 127 MinutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 692865145332 Manufacturer No: T-1453 Product Description

Tai-pan

Tai-pan is perhaps my favorite novel, and the movie just doesn't measure up. If you haven't read the novel, you're not going to have a clue what's going on. Changes to the novel's storyline make this hard to follow, and all the condensing needed to reduce a major novel to under two hours of film left out much of the meat of the story. Would be have been far better made into a mini-series, a la another Clavell novel, 'Shogun.'

Brian Brown did an excellent job breathing life into the title character, despite the limitations of the script. His performance is one of the few bright spots of the film.

Bottom line, the film could have been much better. But even with the myriad flaws, I still enjoyed watching this Clavell treasure come alive. July 13, 2008

Tai-Pan

I liked the book and wanted to see the movie. I liked it but why did they omit the coins? It came quickly (the DVD, not Mary (Kyra Sedgewick)). June 20, 2008

Another in the classic Clavell stories

Though not at the level of Shogun or Noble House, this movie is a good telling of Taipan. Just as the book was not as easy to read, due to the heavy Scottish dialect in which it speaks, this movie seems more difficult to follow as well. There seems to be a rush to introduce the characters, who parts don't 'flesh out'. A lot of the book seems to be lost, as little explanation is given to some of the characters more bizarre behavior.

I did enjoy this movie, because I read the book first and could mentally fill in the gaps in the characters' stories. However, this movie does not compare well to the other books and their movie counterparts in this oriental series by the great writer, James Clavell. Perhaps, it needed to be longer to truly tell the tale...or maybe not. April 26, 2008

A Bit Confusing

Much is missing from Clavel's novel which make "Tai Pan" the movie a bit confusing unless you have read the novel. The movie has many characters that are difficult to sort out and determine where they fit. Parts of the movie are slow and ponderous. April 16, 2008

Tai Pan

The quality fo the DVD is excellant and it is all that I had expected it to be.
March 29, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...