The Ginger Tree

I saw this when it was originally transmitted in UK in 1990. It is a brilliant portrayal of life in a culture which is very different from Western Europe and America and also it contains interesting historical information which all appears to have been accurately researched. It is the story of a young girl who went out to Manchuria in 1903 to marry an English Officer and all that happened to her subsequently. It is so detailed and thought provoking that it is very hard to imagine that this work is entirely fictional, even though it was written by an Englishman who was brought up in Japan and was bilingual. Having read the original novel and listened to the BBC audio book version since the serial was transmitted I do wonder why some of the truncation was undertaken - it could have been even more interesting. I have tried everywhere to get the UK version on video or DVD but have been unable to do so. I have seen the US version, which is not exactly the same as the UK version but would dearly like to view the whole of the UK transmission again. It must have cost an enormous amount of money to make so it is difficult to imagine why it was never made available in video format. Does anyone out there have a UK copy?

Lovely series. Enjoyed the slow buildup. People were trying to carve happiness from unfamiliar situations.

This is a compelling, beautifully composed story of cross cultures, race, gender roles, and stereotypes. The acting was superb and the characters well developed. It also demonstrates how love can endure, even through difficult choices and sacrifices. Set in the same era as Puccini's Madama Butterfly, it shows us a time and place that was once exotic during a time when class and family customs trumped personal choice.

Oswald Wynd's book of the same name, and from which this series was created, is a good read, but this visually stunning mini-series is worth seeing again and again. PBS no longer has the rights to show it, so, for the moment, it is lost to all of us. I have been looking for this to come out, first on VHS, and now on DVD to no avail.

Like other reviewers here, I saw the original in the UK when it came out. That was the first time I saw Samantha Bond who has gone on to become a very popular actress. At the time I was living in London and had something of a fascination for Japanese culture so for me this series was spell binding.

The love story is beautiful done; we feel for the woman who loves not just another man, but a man from another culture during a time when this was an absolute "no". Then to have her child taken from her, our heart strings are pulled in the extreme. A good movie or series starts with superb writing and this was certainly that.

The Japanese man who played the lead was excellent, as was Samantha Bond. The sets, the production captured the essence of the Japanese way of life and feel of the setting in Japan.

I too would love to be able to see this series, in its original entirety, once again. Let's hope somehow that happens.

This series is now available in the UK. When it was originally transmitted I had no means of recording and only managed to see the last two episodes, but I was very impressed and had always wanted to watch the whole thing.

The background detail of life in early twentieth-century Japan is most interesting and the drama extremely moving. Mary's family circumstances and her reasons for marrying on such a brief acquaintance are very much left to the imagination. Presumably she was afraid of being left 'on the shelf' with no career to occupy her mind.

When Armand tells her about the ginkgo tree I wondered if a misunderstanding of this was the reason for the title, but no, it is all explained in the last episode.