Saturday, December 21, 2024

Noble House (1988)

Alastair Struan (Denholm Elliott) has called a midnight meeting at the HQ of the Struan & Company, the leading trading company in Hong Kong.  There are only 4 attendees: his nephew, Ian Dunross (Pierce Brosnan), Philip Chen (Burt Kwouk), and Chen's son, John.  The company is in crisis and Alastair has opted to transfer leadership to Ian.  The name for the CEO is Tai Pan.  Dunross's first act is to fire Alastair from the traditional position of a former Tai Pan.  Minutes later, the folly of his predecessor's leadership is exposed and Ian must make the company public to keep it afloat.

Three years later, Struan & Co are once again treading water.  Dunross has looked overseas for a foreign investor and found Par Con Industries, which is run by Lincoln "Linc" Bartlett (Ben Masters).  Bartlett is a corporate raider who intends to take over Struan & Co, then sell it for a huge profit.  He has secretly hired John Chen as an inside source which gives him an unusually strong bargaining position.  Moreover, after a meet & greet with Dunross, Linc confers with Struan's chief rival, Rothwell-Gornt.  Rothwell-Gornt is run by Quillan Gornt (John Rhys-Davies), who proves to have a Hatfield vs. McCoy relationship with Ian Dunross and his ancestors.  Of note, this is a sequel to Tai Pan, which took place 150 years earlier and is frequently referenced in dialogue regarding the family history.  Maybe I should have watched that movie first.

Though the ostensible plot follows the wheeling and dealing of these titans of industry, the story is really about the love lives of Ian Dunross and Linc Bartlett.  Dunross and Par Con VP Casey Tcholok (Deborah Raffin) are instantly attracted to each other and it quickly escalates, but not without the usual soap operatic bumps of being business rivals.  Then there is Linc and Quillan Gornt's former mistress, Orlanda Ramos (Julia Nickson).  Though Linc knows that Quillan has arranged the tryst, he nonetheless falls for Orlanda.  Of course, she falls for him too.

The story takes place over a week or so, but it is an eventful week.  There is a building fire that nearly kills our heroes, a kidnapping, building collapse, an attempted rape, an international incident, drug dealing blackmailers, and more.  Who knew that Hong Kong was so exciting?

This four-part miniseries has a great setting but is mediocre in execution.  Brosnan is a grim character.  Fresh from his affable and charming role as Remington Steele, here he is a humorless tactician, a man who has allowed his problems to grind him down but never defeat him.  He has no friends, only potential allies for his latest gambit to keep Struan & Co. in business.  Like in the Fourth Protocol, his charm and personality has been stripped away to leave a mostly unappealing character.  By contrast, John Rhys-Davies is having a blast as the villain.  He's nasty but fun, often laughing and smiling as he twists the knife.  Ben Masters is on the one-hand a conniving businessman who fits in the corporate raider mold of Gordon Gecko, but then has this sappy romance with Orlanda.  It is a difficult fit.

Overall, it is mediocre.  Pierce Brosnan and Julia Nickson would start together the following year in another miniseries: Around the World in 80 Days.  That's a better miniseries.  Watch that one instead.

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