Last year at the 75th Emmys, Steven Yeun won Actor in Outstanding Lead in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for the critically beloved “BEEF.” This past September, he stood again on the Peacock Theater stage, this time to announce the winner of the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series award to fellow Asian actor and Japanese icon, Hiroyuki Sanada, for his role as the cunning daimyo, Lord Toranaga. Not only did Sanada (who produced the series) make history as the first Japanese actor to win this category at the Emmys, he is also the second winner of Asian descent for this award, the first being Lee Jung-jae in 2022 for the groundbreaking series, “Squid Game.”
“Shōgun” was certainly groundbreaking in its own right — the series, which aired earlier this year on FX, garnered praise from critics and audiences alike, and broke Emmy records by earning the most wins by any show in a single year, with 18 awards. The series managed to nab 14 accolades at the Creative Emmys alone and another four at this year’s Primetime Emmys, which included the coveted Outstanding Drama Series award. It was a cultural phenomenon that crept into the mainstream with ease.
Based on James Clavell’s 1975 novel “Shōgun” and with an existing 1980s adaptation, one would worry the television series would get lost in the slew of remakes that plague Hollywood. Still, series creators Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks’s adaptation managed to build upon the source material and create something fresh for starved audiences; in fact, the team felt like the story itself was something audiences could find evergreen.
“We were so blown away by the book and how timeless it is – for what it was trying to say then, and how relevant it is today,” Kondo says in an interview with…
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