Houston Chronicle Spotlights Houston ‘Shogun’ Director Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour — Japan-America Society of Houston

On Thursday, July 11, the Houston Chronicle Featured Houston Director and FX Hit Series Shogun director, Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, Jr. Born in Houston to Ghanaian parents and raised in the city’s southwest, Osei-Kuffour’s experiences as a first-generation African-American and his love of the Japanese language and culture led him to produce one of the best Shogun episodes to be broadcast, episode 8: “The abyss of life”.

Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour Jr.’s Journey From Houston to FX’s Hit Series Shogun He studied at Stanford University, Kyoto, Singapore, and returned to Japan. What started as a passion for all things Nintendo eventually landed him a job directing a show about a country and culture he grew to love.

On Sunday, July 14, Osei-Kuffour shared some of that love when he showed and discussed the Shogun The episode he directed, “The Abyss of Life,” at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. The episode is one of the best in the series (which was originally conceived as a limited series but has now been renewed), a tense, suspenseful mini-drama about power plays and tested loyalties, with massive repercussions for the story as a whole.

I always felt a little bit of an outsider because I was never African enough, but I also wasn’t exposed to as much black American culture growing up because my parents were immigrants. Those stories about feeling like an outsider, feeling that disconnect, were really powerful for me. That’s what Japanese films are all about, but they tell those stories in a really emotionally impactful way.

-Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour

“The Abyss of Life” is a complex episode that allows Osei-Kuffour to show off his skills in intimate scenes loaded with political and personal subtext. In the key scene, Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) appears to cave to his rivals on the Regents’ Council and cede his authority, a decision that dismays his allies, particularly his oldest friend and general, Hiromatsu (Tokuma Nishioka). As the two men confront each other in a room full of allies, Hiromatsu, unsure whether Toranaga’s surrender is a ruse, threatens to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide by disembowelment.

The moment builds, with a tense ambiguity that permeates the entire episode. “That tension was very intentional,” Osei-Kuffour says. “I really wanted everyone, from scene to scene, to really lean into every pause, every action, every decision that Toranaga makes. In many ways, the audience is the samurai clan. We’re being manipulated in the same way that the clan is being manipulated.”

Osei-Kuffour’s time in Japan taught him to live in a heightened state of observation, spotting potential stories and miniature dramas everywhere he looked. It’s a country that contains a multitude of cultures and personalities, much of it just beneath the surface. In that sense, it reminds him of his hometown, where he still owns a house (near the Trill Burger, which he frequents whenever he’s in town).

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