by JAMES CLAVELL
A serial in five parts inspired by the true story of Will Adams , an Elizabethan sailor who became the only non-Japanese Samurai. starring .
Richard Chamberlain Toshiro Mifune Yoko Shimada and Alan Badel
1: The year is 1600. Japan is dangerously divided, ruled by a Council of Regents which includes two warlords, Toranaga and Ishido -each cleverly chosen to neutralise the other's ambition to become Shogun, supreme military dictator. Into this political -power-struggle fate throws Pilot-Major John Blackthorne, an English navigator shipwrecked while trying to break the Portuguese monopoly of the silk trade.
Directed by JERRY LONDON Scripted and produced by ERIC BERCOVICI
Executive producer JAMES CLAVELL