Originally Posted by
JonDoe
Title : Taewangsashingi(The Chronicle of Four Guardian Gods of The Great King)
Starring :
Bae Yong Joon - Jesus "rip-off" and Damduk The Great King
Moon So Ri - Gi Ha
Yi Ji Ah - Soo Ji Ni
Synopses : A $45 million Lord Of The Ring wanna-be fantasy epic starring Bae Yong Joon.
Review . Produced at the cost of $45 million(Yup $45 million US dollars, $6 million of which goes to Yon-Sama's pocket), The Chronicle of Four Guardian Gods of The Great King attempts to be the Asian Lord Of The Rings like the movie "The Promise" was. So does it succeed? Not really.
Starting from the stone age, Yon-sama starts off as a Jesus like figure(complete with transfiguration) who comes down from heaven to start his own Kingdom of Heaven on earth named Korea(cough cough, More like Hell on Earth to me), but watches his kingdom destroyed and his earthly woman die during an epic struggle against the fire witch. Saddened Yon-sama decides to return to heaven, promising that he would return to earth again to rebuild his kingdom of heaven. Yon-sama does return to earth 3,000 years later, reincarnated as the Great King. Also reincarnated are the fire witch, Yon-sama's lover, and his old enemies and new enemies(namely the Chinese) to destroy his Kingdom of Heaven once again, and Yon-sama must battle them.
Make no mistake, this drama is pretty indeed, almost movie-quality and on a par with previously mentioned "The Promise". You probably never get to see something like this on TV screen elsewhere except for Hollywood fares. Then what's wrong with it? First, the show elevates Yon-sama to the rank of god, along with his three guardian gods(I don't know where the fourth one comes from). Surely Yon-sama must be a god to the cult of Yon-sama fans who made him a $100 million man, but it is just too much for regular TV viewers. Secondly, the producers of this show claim that they are trying to counter what they claim to be Chinese historical distortion, but this drama is a 100% fantasy that pretends to be "history". A fantasy by itself is fine, but mixing fantasy with historical persons and then claiming to be "history" isn't. Lastly, the nationalist agenda behind this show(Korea's Kingdom of Heaven on earth? Whom are they kidding.) sucks.
Do watch the show if you are into fantasy tales and are a Yon-sama fan, but this show's obvious nationalist agenda is too disturbing for my taste.