Veteran Asian TV exec David Shin’s new life as a premium global drama creator, writer and showrunner dawns this month with the debut of House of the Owl, a drama about a Japanese master fixer who, having guided politicians and business leaders through some of the country’s biggest scandals and triumphs, discovers that fixing his family can be more difficult than fixing a country.

The 10-episode drama premieres globally on Disney+ and Hulu on 24 April. Shin, most recently Disney’s SVP for Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia after years at Fox Networks Group, created House of the Owl and wrote the scripts for all 10 episodes.

In a sense, the premium series takes him back to the start of his path into television, when he graduated from USC Film School “many moons ago... I’ve been writing ever since,” he says.

House of the Owl, which has been in the works for more than a decade, was inspired by a businessman Shin met in Japan almost 15 years ago.

“He mingled amongst the politicians, corporations, and the Japanese underworld, to get what he wanted; but struggled to hold the same kind of influence over his own family. I thought this could be an amazing story about the influence and limits of public and private power,” Shin says.

Family is a core concept of the series, which stars Min Tanaka (Perfect Days) as powerful patriarch Ogami Ryutaro. Mackenyu (One Piece) stars as his U.S.-educated son, Ogami Ryu.

The series is directed by Yoshitaka Mori with Yuya Ishii and Yusaku Matsumoto.

Shin adds that the family in the series “can represent the main character’s immediate family, as well as the family he sees in Japan as a nation”.

The inspiration for House of the Owl stretches back across Shin’s career on the business side of the TV industry.

“When I started working in Japan, one of the most fascinating things I observed was how the Japanese covertly used influence and persuasion to gain and hold power.

“There are a group of powerful Japanese men who wield enormous influence over politics, business, entertainment and sports. Many of them are dying out now and I thought a story about one of those men, his family, and the generational conflicts between the two would make a powerful story,” he adds.

In addition to Ogami Ryutaro, played by Min Tanaka (Perfect Days), other characters are inspired by real people Shin met and worked with in Japan.

Many of the storylines have their origins in what Shin describes as Japan’s “countless publicly untold stories”.

The project has been in the works for about 10 years, and has its roots in a dinner with Rieko Muramoto, the former president of Avex Entertainment, an early entrant into streaming.

“She was frustrated about Japan’s inability to create premium series,” Shin says.

His pilot for Avex was eventually picked up by Disney with a season order.

Shin set up Iconique Pictures in Japan because “one of the best opportunities right now for filmmakers and content creators is in Japan”.

“You have the success of Shogun, Tokyo Vice and One Piece. There’s a global fascination about Japan and Japanese stories. Japanese stories are global. Japan just needs globally minded storytellers to tell those stories,” he says.

Iconique Pictures presents itself as a media and entertainment company for the 21st century.

What does that mean?

"Fundamentally, the audiences today have the world’s content at their fingertips – I believe some of the most interesting and compelling content will be coming out of Asia, where language and culture are not barriers but advantages for Asian filmmakers,” Shin says.

With House of the Owl counting down to its global premiere, Shin is now working on a supernatural suspense thriller, Kaidan (working title), which he says is “inspired in some ways by The Shining”.

“It’s a film about a group of people from different cultures and walks of life, snowbound and trapped in the Japanese alps,” he says.

He’s also working on a fictionalised samurai period drama, set during Japan’s Onin Wars period, that reimagines the Samurai genre for contemporary audiences.

“What Bridgerton did for Regency romance dramas, I’m hoping to do for the Samurai genre,” he says.

Asked about the biggest challenges producing premium TV series in the current environment, Shin asks right back: “Where do I start?”

“The biggest challenge, specially speaking about Asia, is creating premium series that can travel outside of the home market. We’ve seen, of course, Korean content travel regionally and occasionally globally. If producers and filmmakers can create Asian content that can garner meaningful audiences in and out of their home markets, there will be much more production budgets and growth in all sectors of the business. It’s that virtuous cycle that is the biggest challenge but also the biggest opportunity.”

An edited version of this feature appeared in ContentAsia's e-newsletter for 8 April 2024.