When The King: Eternal Monarch Starring Lee Min Ho & Kim Go Eun Got Banned In South Korea, Stirring Controversy Over The Wrong Portrayal Of Japanese & Korean History, The Producer Had Issued An Apology

The King: Eternal Monarch is one of the popular K-dramas based on a science fiction romance between King Lee Gon, played by Lee Min Ho, and a detective, Jeong Tae-eul, played by Kim Go Eun, from two different worlds. However, even though the drama received a lot of appreciation and love across the globe, it was banned in South Korea over the wrong portrayal of Korean and Japanese history.

Despite the drama holding the No.1 spot on the weekly Wavve drama chart for eight weeks straight and becoming the most watched and popular series back in 2020 in India, Malaysia, Philippines, and Singapore, The King: Eternal Monarch was not well received by the Koreans. Scroll ahead to read about the controversy that led to the banning of the show.

Korea was ruled by Japan from 1910 to 1945 and during their rule, Koreans had to face many hurdles and struggles, including forced labour, slave trading, and even the use of female captives as comfort women during the Second World War, as mentioned in a report of MovieWeb. Now, apparently, Lee Min Ho starrer The King: Eternal Monarch stirred up controversy by showing a backdrop that resembled Japanese-influenced culture. The buildings implicated traditional Japanese temples, along with the misplacement of Japanese flags on Korean warships, ignited the issue even more.

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After the controversy broke out in the media, leading the series to suffer in South Korea, the producer of The King: Eternal Monarch, Baek Sang Hoo, came forward with an apology. His statement according to The Naver TV Entertainnent, “As the director, I sincerely apologize for causing this controversy, regardless of the reason. But I can tell you that we did not intend to put a Japanese flag on our Korean warships or to mislead viewers into mistaking our Korean warships as Japanese warships. First of all, we were planning to film the scene in Korea around mid-January and use open source reference materials. However, due to COVID-19, it became impossible to shoot overseas, and the prolonged COVID-19 situation made it impossible to shoot domestically as well.”

Baek Sang Hoo further added, “Because I am not an expert [in warships], I did not recognize the specific characteristics of warships that look similar to each other, and even though I should have checked every detail of the actual data, I made the mistake of choosing the data mainly based on the storyboard.
Even though we were dealing with a conflict between a fictional Korean Empire and Japan, we were still complacent and should have let experts supervise the content to prevent possible errors in advance.”

Well, what are your thoughts about Lee Min Ho and Kim Go Eun’s The King: Eternal Monarch controversy? Have you watched it yet?

Stay tuned to Koimoi for more news and updates.

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