Tai-Pan

Audience Reviews

View All (35) audience reviews

David W Tai-Pan is notorious for its nightmarish production circumstances, but the fact that this film is so bad it’s almost good cannot be solely blamed on that. Questionable acting and one of the worst fake Scottish accents I’ve ever heard share plenty of the blame. Yet, despite its flaws, of which there are many, it still manages to entertain and keep the audience engaged. For that, I would watch it again… if there were no better options available. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 12/13/24 Full Review Audience Member The funniest movie from the UK-Hong Kong directors!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member Pretty good. This movie by Duke Daryl is based on an epic novel by James Clavell. The main issue I have with the movie is its duration. James' novel has a plot that stretches over months, with characters worth pages and pages of social backgrounds. Had the movie retained everything from the book, it would have been 5 hours long. Unfortunately, the action was therefore squeezed and it's hard to follow what's going on if you haven't read the book before. Aside this, the costumes are great, the music adequately supports the action and the actors performed nicely. Quance's character is perfection. All in all, this movie has its flaws but is still enjoyable. 4 stars. 4.5 if the movie hadn't omitted the 4 broken pieces that sealed Jin-qua's deal. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/21/23 Full Review Audience Member Tai-Pan (1986) Although I'm a big fan of James Clavell's Shogun, I thought that his book Tai-Pan was far superior. His book about the early China trade, starting with the Opium Wars and then the taking of the island of Hong Kong by the British was wonderful. This brought a continuation of his characters on the rest of his series of books about Asia. The movie, Tai-Pan was perfect timing for the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group with the up-coming transfer of Hong Kong sovereignty back to mainland China in 1997. Unfortunately the transfer of this story to film, just didn't work as well. I still think that it covered the book okayl and it's well worth a viewing especially if your a James Clavell fan. Although Roger Ebert called this movie "The Battle of the Breasts", it does have some of the most beautiful and sexy women of the 80s; Joan Chen, Kyra Sedgwick, Janine Turner, Katy Behean, and scores of unknown cuties. Dirk Struan (Brian Brown) is a Scottish leader of a fleet of sailing ships in the lucrative trading with China. He deals with pirates, corrupt officials, and competing, villainous merchants. He has to deal with high finance and political intrigue to stay afloat and alive. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/16/23 Full Review Audience Member good version of this Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Frances H Pretty bad. Should have paid heed to both sets of ratings here. Bryan Brown's "Scottish" accent was laughable, as well as the terrible dialogue poor Joan Chen had to mouth. Even Maurice Jarre's music left a lot to be desired. It was like it was trying to be like Hawaii and just didn't know how. Piss poor. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 08/10/14 Full Review Read all reviews

Tai-Pan

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW