Chateau Lloyd

Over the last few weeks I've intermittently been watching Nobel House, a 1988 miniseries based on the best-selling James Clavell novel.

The book was originally set in the 1960s, but was seamlessly brought into the late 1980s, and as such the 1997 handover of the Crown Colony to the Peoples' Republic of China loomed large.

This is a classic tale of corporate raiding ala Wall Street or Dynasty, but with a unique Asian twist.  Hong Kong is a fascinating place, and it dominated Clavell's thoughts for good reason.

In many ways, it is very much of its time, a Miami Vice set in the far east.  There are multiple levels of intrigue and of course remarkable shifts of fortune.  Pierce Brosnan, fresh from his Remington Steele work, is outstanding as Ian Dunross, heir and CEO to Noble House, a British firm founded along with the colony during the Opium Wars.  Noble House has moved on from opium and has weathered the Pacific War and Chinese Civil War, but struggles amidst the wild west 1980s environment of corporate raiders.  As the "Tai Pan" of Noble House, Dunross holds a special place in Hong Kong society, which is modern, cosmopolitan, but still beholden to Chinese traditions.

One of these involves a favor granted by a previous Tai Pan, signified by a broken coin.  Amidst corporate intrigue, the possession of this favor becomes a tale unto itself, and the notion of a modern multi-national business being locked into such agreements seems impossible today.  There is of course an American angle, which is naturally of the Gordon Gekko "greed is good" mentality, but one of the joys of the show is watching the naiive Americans get completely lost in the maze of Hong Kong corporate politics.

Opposing Brosnan is none other than John Rhys-Davies, a rival CEO pledged to destroy Noble House, and I took great joy in this show of Welsh-Irish animosity.  Go Celts!  It is my firm intention to snag this on DVD because it was fun to watch and I'm sure I missed a few things.