A ‘Noble House’ That’s Big, Lavish

“Noble House” is a throwback to a time when TV miniseries were interminable and their characters made sleepy, tedious love the way Perry Como croons. It’s awesomely big and lavish--more panoramic spectacle than story, its real star being the water and mirrored skyline of its gorgeous Hong Kong setting.

NBC’s version of James Clavell’s 1,370-page novel is diverting, grandly staged and pretty to look at but doesn’t have much upstairs, despite Pierce Brosnan’s arresting performance as a powerful corporate magnate.

Let’s immediately clear up several matters essential to an understanding of the eight-hour “Noble House” (which begins at 9 p.m. Sunday and continues through Wednesday on Channels 4, 36 and 39):

--Noble House is the name of the fictional company depicted in the story as the British colony’s largest and most influential trading firm.

-- Tai-pan-- Brosnan’s title as Noble House head man Ian Dunross--means supreme leader.

--The Noble House tai-pan is bound by tradition to grant a favor to anyone who has the missing half of an ancient Chinese coin.

--Lots of goofy things happen in executive-producer Clavell’s tale of sex, wealth, greed, betrayal, ruthlessness, murder and great clothes. That’s because, as we’re reminded again and again and again by half a dozen people in Eric Bercovici’s script (directed by Gary Nelson). . . .

“This is Hong Kong.”

“Noble House” is not exactly good P.R. for big business. Most of it concerns Ian’s attempts to shield his endangered firm from such callous corporate predators as old enemy Quillan Gornt (John Rhys-Davies) and Linc Bartlett (Ben Masters), who has flown in from Los Angeles with his top lieutenant, Casey Tcholok (Deborah Raffin), a real dish.

Ian and Casey get one gander at each other and it’s rockets away, a 10 on the Richter scale. Ditto for Linc and Gornt’s main operative, Orlanda Ramos (Julia Nickson).

Much more interesting and titillating than these tinny romances and the core story--a sort of pale “Wall Street”--are a subplot involving a possible Red Chinese spy and the intriguingly baffling environment of Hong Kong society. Any story that includes an underworld figure named Four Finger Wu (Khigh Dhiegh) can’t be all bad.

Observes the witty Four Finger about Ian: “I’m pleased that the tai-pan is doing to one American (Casey) what the other (Linc) is trying to do to him.”

In a daring twist for American TV, most of the Caucasian characters of “Noble House” are more stereotypical and predictable than the Asians. Its predictability, in fact, is precisely what turns “Noble House” into a laboriously slow boat to China, leaving you to ponder the mysteries of the local culture, but not the suspenseless main plot.

If you’re unable to predict who will prevail in Ian versus Gornt at approximately 10:45 p.m. Wednesday, or whether Casey will ultimately side with Linc or her tai-pan, you should be watching something simpler.

Brosnan, who already has proved his leading-man and light-comedy mettle in “Remington Steele,” makes a charismatic tai-pan, at once a supremely suave hero and a man of dimension, complexity and occasional surprises. Brosnan’s Ian is a character with an edge, essentially decent but often as steelly and merciless as his opponents. Good work from a good actor.

Masters and Rhys-Davies give mid-range performances as the thinly written Linc and Gornt respectively. But the tall, elegant Raffin delivers little more than cool aloofness as Casey, and is so often like a recording that when she’s finished speaking, you want to wait for a beep so you can leave a message.

There are times when “Noble House” demands intensity and emotion from its cast, such as an enormous, irrelevant, story-swelling fire sequence (not in the book) that comes out of nowhere and is artificially implanted like silicone in a breast.

Much later comes a landslide as ludicrously staged as a Godzilla movie, finding all the major characters inexplicably inside or outside the same luxury apartment building. Why would they be there? Only one answer is possible.

This is Hong Kong.