Recently I decided I needed to read a mindless potboiler so I picked up James Clavell's Noble House. It's not great literature but he was a good writer and knew what he was talking about with all his experience as an old Asia hand. I got through 1000+pages and then got weary of a plot that was growing more and more predictable. I hopscotched my way through the last 200 or so pages, just for the record, and to find out if my hunches about the ending were correct. They were. Then I decided to get a cheap copy of the mini-series, and I'm glad it was cheap.What I didn't realize was that this televised adaptation was a Dino de Laurentis production. What I found upon watching it was an excruciatingly long Asian version of 'Dallas' or 'Knots Landing'. The casting was pretty well done but as good as some of them were they couldn't do anything with the banal dialogue and the foreshortened story line with many characters omitted entirely. This didn't surprise me as any filmed undertaking of such a long involved novel is probably doomed from the start as far as presenting a complete version of the story.The resulting TV show was like one of those crib books we used to buy in college to get us through tests on books we hadn't read. The skeleton was there, almost, but none of the guts. Another constant irritant was the saccharin and formulaic music of Paul Chihara, which surprised me because he is a fine composer, as a rule. The location shots were repeated over and over and almost none of the glamour and glittering energy of Hong Kong was captured on film. The whole production was more like a grade school travelogue than an adult drama set in one of the most intriguing cities in the world.However, no expense was spared on the set designs, costumes and automobiles, but the rest was pure Hollywood pabulum. On paper Pierce Brosnan might have seemed a good choice for the Tai- pan, Ian Dunross. In actuality he was far too young. The character in the book was low-key, but intense. Brosnan catches that aspect of Dunross well, but the script is so limiting that he, as good an actor as he is, could do little to create a three-dimensional human being. But he looks sensational and that is what really mattered, I suppose.Deborah Raffin is very good as K.C. and she has more success in her role. Ben Masters looks the part of Linc Bartlett but is also hobbled by the script. Of the rest there are some very effective, though futile, performances by Gordon Jackson, Dudley Sutton, John Rhys-Davies and Julia Nickson. Tia Carrere's role as Venus Poon is so hacked about that she is simply left with a prop in the form of a toy poodle to haul around, in lieu of any meaningful part in the story, beyond going to bed with several old men and getting squished, presumably, in the final cataclysmic landslide that neatly kills off several of the leading players.The producers of this sprawling story have reduced it to a boy meets girl love story with an auxiliary boy meets girl love story. They've jettisoned the Tai-pan's wife and kids so that he can be a love interest for K.C. The Russian spy angle is dumped altogether.Basically, then, what we're left with are several bedroom scenes, very tepid they are too, and a big fire on a restaurant boat, a horse race and a mudslide. It is all very tedious.This mini-series was a complete waste of time.

Writing strictly about the DVD release of this mini-series, the 16 X 9 treatment was a real nice addition to the excellent color, easy to use menu and beautiful sound that surrounds this great story. I am not a Pierce Brosnan fan, but he performs admirably the task of playing Ian Dunross, Tai Pan of the Noble House.The other characters jump off the screen in this crisp, vibrant and colorful DVD release.The only objection I have is to the tiresome way they always have to play the full credits at the beginning of each segment of the mini-series. Why can't they have a credit chapter that only plays once? All in all, one of the better releases on DVD of an old VHS set.

It would really be about time to get the mini-series out. We ourselves still have an old VHS version which is starting to break. One would have supposed that simply Brosnans career as Bond would have brought out most of his old "filmography".I wonder how many of us there are who would sacrifice some of over earthly belongings and hard owned mammon in order to get a DVD version of Nobel House. I presume we should be numerous enough to form a market. I wonder who is making choices about the release now? I did previously follow some link, which eventually gave a possibility to show ones interest in the movie in order for it to be released, but that was some years ago and nothing has still happened. Odd.

I still remember looking forward anxiously to seeing this miniseries when it first aired -- I had considered "Noble House" James Clavell's masterpiece, even greater than "Shogun." I had come away from reading the book with the sense of knowing the characters as if they were real people, and missing them when the book was finished.In some cases, the characterizations in the miniseries hit the mark. Pierce Brosnan does an excellent job as the supremely self-confident Ian Dunross, John Rhys-Davies gives a truly inspired performance of charming villainy as Quillan Gornt, Burt Kwouk is very convincing as the compradore of the Noble House, and Gordon Jackson did a fine turn as the committed, conflicted Superintendent Armstrong. I also thought Julia Nickson Soul really heated up the screen; she was much better than a young Tia Carrere (in her pre-"Wayne's World" days).Unfortunately, I thought the American performances were weak. Deborah Raffin was OK as K.C. Tcholok, but I would have preferred it if they had stuck to the story and not had her wind up romantically involved with Ian Dunross. The weakest in my opinion, though, was Ben Masters as Linc Bartlett. While Mr. Masters may be a good actor, I didn't think he carried this role off very well. In the book, Bartlett is a cool, calculating, and yet personable man who comes across as opportunistic but respectful of Hong Kong business and cultural traditions. Clavell wrote him as a friendly, likable man who moves easily into the circles of power in the Colony but who is an unknown, unpredictable quantity to all of the vying factions. I thought that Mr. Masters overplayed the part as too cocky, too brash, and too shallow to be a likable or sympathetic figure. In the novel, I thought Bartlett was an intriguing character on a par with Dunross. In the miniseries, I generally thought he was just a jerk.That aside, while the miniseries has to trim a lot of the interesting sub-plots in the interest of time, it does a good job of remaining true to the spirit of Clavell's novel. I'd agree with the observation that you should watch the miniseries, then read the novel to see what the story was REALLY about.