He was supposed to play Ken Watanabe's role in The Last Samurai, but after 21 years, Hiroyuki Sanada explains why he feels destined to play Shogun Shogun.

A)
1)
The blockbuster drama "Shogun", starring Hiroyuki Sanada, has finally reached its final episode.

2)
The miniseries has had the best debut in the history of Disney's television division, Disney General Entertainment Content, and has remained at the top of the distribution rankings despite a flurry of high-profile titles from rival companies over the past eight weeks. In other words, it has always attracted audiences.

3)
Critical reception has also been excellent from the start. Variety magazine's Emmy nomination prediction article also predicts that the film will win in the miniseries category and that Hiroyuki Sanada, Tadanobu Asano and Anna Sawai will be nominated in the acting category.

Even after the spectacular final episode, it looks like the drama will continue to have a lot of fun, from the Emmy nominations announcement in July to the Emmy Awards ceremony in September.

4)
Hiroyuki Sanada, who also starred in and produced the series, has been instrumental in its success. For him, who first appeared in a Hollywood film in 2003's The Last Samurai, this is a situation where he has come full circle and come back even more significant.

When I asked him about this, Sanada said that he felt the "fate" that is the theme of this drama.

5)
The existence of "The Last Samurai", which supported the project:

The Last Samurai, another period piece set in Japan, was a huge hit, grossing $454 million worldwide. The film cost $140 million, a considerable sum at the time.

6)
However, the big difference with Shogun is that it starred Tom Cruise. Warner Bros. immediately green-lit the project, which featured some of the world's top stars and was set in a world far away from American audiences, with occasional subtitles, and gave them a generous budget.

7)
That was a big plus but also a bit of a minus. As the studio had hoped, people worldwide went to see it because Tom Cruise was in it, but at that time, I was already working as a film journalist in L.A., and L.A.ellow Western reporters were telling me,

"Tom Cruise is the Samurai." Sometimes, I heard people say, "That's weird." I didn't think it was that weird (I think Japanese audiences felt the same way; the film was a massive hit in Japan, grossing 13.7 billion yen), but I'm sure some people felt that way.

B)
8)
Still, "The Last Samurai" received reasonably good reviews from critics, with a 66% rating on the film review site Rotten Tomatoes. This must have significantly boosted the "Shogun" project.

The original novel "Shogun" by James Clavell, published in the mid-1970s, was a bestseller, and the 1980 television adaptation "Shogun", starring Richard Chamberlain and Yoko Shimada, was also a hit.

While it was already a valuable film, "The Last Samurai" proved that works in this setting could be widely accepted.

9)
In 2013, it was announced that Fox Channel and corporate affiliate F.X. planned to turn "Shogun" into a television series again. However, Asano said he had been approached by the studio that owned the rights before that. In other words, it was only a few years after "The Last Samurai" that there was a movement.

10)
Historical drama created by producer Hiroyuki Sanada:

But it took a long time. In the meantime, times were changing, and studio executives began to think it would be better to show Japanese characters and culture more thoroughly than just from a white person's point of view.

11)
Meanwhile, this project, which had reached the point where filming was about to begin, was suddenly cancelled. The series was reorganised with new hires Justin Marks and his wife Rachel Kondo as showrunners and writers.

12)
Marks approached Sanada, who would only be the lead, and asked if he would also be the producer. Sanada also expressed his opinion about the portrayal of Japan in "The Last Samurai".

"If it's okay," director Edward Zwick offered, and Sanada, who was involved in post-production and even paid for his lodging, replied, "I'd be happy."

13)
Sanada brought in experts from Japan and created a historical drama that the Japanese would be happy with. 70% of the dialogue is in Japanese, and that part is subtitled for non-Japanese speakers, so the fact that it took longer than planned was a success.

14)
Americans were once thought to hate subtitles, but the recent success of foreign dramas such as The Squid Game proved this is not necessarily true.

This must have given the producers of Shogun confidence (although the scenes where the Portuguese speak to each other are in English, which Kondo says was very difficult to achieve).

15)
Also, unlike the days of "The Last Samurai", when the prerequisite for a film to be a hit was to have a famous star, in recent years, audiences have begun to choose movies based on the concept rather than who is in the film. Shogun", which features a cast with excellent acting skills but is unfamiliar to general audiences in Europe and the United States, seems to have drawn viewers into drama more easily.

C)
16)
Sanada was to play the role of Ken Watanabe in "The Last Samurai."

For Sanada, "Shogun" is a milestone in another sense as well. According to Zwick's recently published memoir, Hits, Flops and Other Illusions, Sanada was supposed to play Katsumoto, the leading Japanese character in The Last Samurai.

When director Zwick said he wanted Ken Watanabe to play the role, Warner Bros. in Japan objected, but Sanada himself told him he would play the supporting role of Ujio, so the deal was done.

17)
Sanada expressed his intention to support the film and Ken.
At that time, Ken was deeply in debt after his battle with leukaemia.
He had no choice but to accept offers for T.V. dramas, even if they were boring projects or roles.
"I didn't know Ken was in that situation," Zwick said.

18)
Watanabe was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for the role. It was the first time in 46 years, since 1958, that a Japanese was nominated in the acting category at the Oscars. Since then, both Watanabe and Sanada have carved out their careers in Hollywood, but Sanada has never been involved in a significant award.

19)
However, he is now sure to be nominated in the Primetime Emmy's Best Actor category for "Shogun". If this happens, he will be the first Japanese actor to be nominated.

After 21 years, Sanada's time may finally come to get the spotlight he deserves. Isn't that precisely what he says, "fate"? I look forward to seeing how far this twist of fate will take him.

He was supposed to play Ken Watanabe's role in The Last Samurai, but after 21 years, Hiroyuki Sanada explains why he feels destined to play Shogun Shogun.

https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/70275

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True Detective - Wikipedia

It is an anthology television series created and written by novelist Nic Pizzolatto. It has been broadcast on HBO Channel since 2014
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRUE_DETECTIVE