bkoganbing 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.

widescreenguy first, inject countless clichés and stereotypes, populate the cast with some well-knowns, and add some 'tit'illation. and wait for the box office receipts to pour in!!! I am very very disappointed in this film which I purchased on VHS. its one of those I *know* I wont be watching a 2nd time. it meanders, gap toothed, and those stereotypes just weigh it down till it sinks in Hong Kong harbor. and of course, top it all off with a quickie pan of modern day Hong Kong. some good acting but not enough to overcome the numerous shortcomings.I didn't read the book but Im sure it far outclasses this quickie 2 + hour 'featurette'. is there a Hollywood ombudsman you can call up to you know, get your money back or something?Im glad IMDb exists so that duds like this can be outed and red-flagged.

rbischoff I found this movie to follow the novel pretty closely, considering of course that the novel is about 900 pages and the movie is only two hours! While not of the same outstanding caliber of adaptation as the Shogun miniseries, it nevertheless manages to generate some excitement and give a flavor for the happenings of that period, during which the colony of Hong Kong was founded.Joan Chen was especially good as Mai-Mai, and all the other parts were at least adequately cast. The locations, sets and production values were of uniformly good quality. The only thing lacking was enough time to tell a story this long and complex--in such a short production one only has time to hit the high points of the plot. But it was enjoyable nevertheless.

yenlo Adventure film based on James Clavell's novel about a 19th-century trade baron who makes his headquarters in Hong Kong. This is the 3rd worst motion picture I've ever seen in a theater (behind Rebel and Dune.) It seemed that the original intention was to have made this as a TV mini series and not for theatrical release. One point in the film Bryan Browns character Dirk Struan tells another male character "When you make dung you'll wipe your arse with paper". The entire theater crowd erupted in laughter for about five minutes and it appeared that the line was not intended to be humorous. That's how bad this movie was.