The King: Eternal Monarch mired in controversy due to opening credits; Makers of Lee Min Ho starrer apologise

The King: Eternal Monarch premiered over the weekend. The K-Drama released two episodes, each on Friday and Saturday, and it witnessed the return of Lee Min-Ho and Kim Go Eun to the small screen. The Legend of the Blue Sea star was MIA owing to his military service. While fans of the actor's return racked mind-blowing viewership, the show has found itself in a controversy. The King: Eternal Monarch is under fire for a montage featured in the opening credits scene. 

A few viewers of the K-Drama show pointed out that the opening credits of The King: Eternal Monarch featured a monument similar to the Tōdai-ji. For the unversed, it is is one of the seven most influential Buddhist temples in Nara. Several internet users pointed out that it was offensive to use a Japanese building in a show that is supposed to represent the Korean Daehan empire. 

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To top it off, a few users also noticed that the Korean royal emblem was covered with CGI-created cherry blossoms. A few viewers also drew similarities between the Imperial Seal on the fictional show and the real Imperial Seal of Japan. The CGI did not go down well with the viewers as they pointed out that the drama ideally highlights ancient Korean society. "I know it's a drama or movie, but if you're going to make a work on ancient Korea, shouldn't you do your historical research to produce this?" a user pointed out, according to AllKPop. 

Following the controversy, the makers of the SBS fantasy romance drama issued an apology. Soompi shared the statement: 

We are conveying Hwa & Dam Pictures’s statement regarding the current controversial issue.

First, we will address the imperial seal of the Korean Empire. In order to represent a constitutional monarchy in which the National Assembly or Executive Branch is centered around the imperial family, we created the Korean Empire’s imperial seal with a ‘double plum flower’ design in which a flower is enfolded by another flower. It’s completely unrelated to the Imperial Seal of Japan.

We will address the production of the title video. First, in the case of the wooden pagoda, we used the Baekje five-story wooden pagoda, which is on display the Baekje History Reproduction Complex, as a base. We hoped that we would not cause misunderstandings through designing a fictional wooden building by recreating a wooden pagoda that is seen in historical records.

However, in the case of the two-story wooden pagoda, we used features of Korean Buddhist temples and Chinese royal palaces as the base to make a fictional wooden pagoda, and we have verified that some features of a Japanese temple were used in the process. It was clearly our mistake, no matter the reason for it, for us to have not paid close attention to every detail in the process of designing the fictional world of the Korean Empire, and we sincerely apologize.

The production team will immediately correct this, and we will make sure that you feel no discomfort when watching the show from episode 3 onwards. We will also correct this in the reruns and video-on-demand services for episodes that have already aired.

We once again apologize, and we will try our best to make a high-quality drama.

The King: Eternal Monarch was also in the news lately for an error they featured on the show. Several viewers pointed out that Min-Ho's scar on the show is placed on the wrong side. In the first episode premiered on April 17, Lee Gon is attacked by Lee Lim as a child. In the fight sequence, Gon is attacked on the left side. However, as the episode fast forwards to the present, the scar appears on the right side. 

Several viewers took to Twitter and pointed out the blunder. "Am I the only one who noticed Lee Minho's scar placement on his neck? The child Lee Gon was injured on his left side neck but the adult Lee Gon's scar was on the right side. What could be the reason?" asked a fan. "am i wrong seeing the scar on lee min ho’s neck in #TheKingEternalMonarch supposedly on his left side but they make it on the right side," added another fan. 

What did you think of The King: Eternal Monarch as of yet? Let us know your review in the comments below. 

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