The time is the 1840s; the setting is the newly founded British domain of Hong Kong. A typhoon is lashing the coast and high winds are threatening to destroy the trading establishment of Noble House.

Before yelling “action,” the people who made Tai-Pan consulted a Feng Shoi astrologer. According to the movie’s production notes, this was done so that the gods would not be offended by the project, ...

The film begins following the British victory of the first Opium War and the seizure of Hong Kong. Although the island is largely uninhabited and the terrain unfriendly, it has a large port that both ...