(Re-edited 33 episodes in 2 volume)

Box Vol. 1
Disc 1~6 : 18 Expisodes

) Fixed ideas about a national hero are brought up for a scrutiny.

No hero has ever been sent by heaven. He has emerged as one ultimately
after undergoing a lifelong process. Drama "Yi Sun-shin" is designed to
challenge the fixed ideas about him who has been remembered in the form
of an imposing statue standing at the Gwanghwamun intersection in Seoul
and the Hyeonchungsa Shrine in South Chungcheong Province, while
shedding a new light upon him as a human being.

2) Drama "Yi Sun-shin" depicts Yi Sun-shin as a soldier who struggled to
survive turbulent days.

At the time when Yi Sun-shin lived, the Joseon Dynasty had to achieve
political reforms and stabilize the livelihood of the people, while defending
the country against the Yojin (Nu Zhen) Tribe and Japanese pirate raiders. Yi
Sun-shin was regarded sometimes with jealousy in the process of protecting
grass-roots people and sticking to the principles of reforms and lost some
battles. He was removed from his duties three times and reinstated to the
military service two times as a rank-and-filer. But for all this disgrace, Yi
Sun-shin was reborn as a true hero who led the Joseon Navy to a myth of
invincibility during the Hideyoshi Invasion (1592-1598 A.D.). Yi Sun-shin, as a
soldier who struggled to protect grass-roots people, is what Drama "Yi Sun-
shin" has planned to depict.

3) Drama "Yi Sun-shin" is a Korean version of "War and Peace" in the 21st
century

Drama "Yi Sun-shin" is not a biography of Admiral Yi Sun-shin, nor does it
intend to reconstruct a part of the Joseon Dynasty that existed in the 16th
century. It will merely look into many human beings, including Yi Sun-shin,
who underwent an extreme situation called the Hideyoshi Invasion, in efforts
to study all kinds of human nature, from the most noble down to the most
crude...

While dramatizing a war in which human beings turn into inhuman wretches
in an extreme way, we hope that this drama will serve paradoxically as an
opportunity to remind people of the importance of peace.

4) We are not going to depict characters based on a dichotomous criterion.

We will cast a new light on another military leader, Won Gyun, whose
evaluation has been severely distorted in the process of making a hero of
Admiral Yi Sun-shin, and maintain an objective view of the military leaders of
Japan and the Chinese Ming Dynasty as well. While based on a historical
fact on the national hero of Japan, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, we are going to find
out how his distorted ambition had led many people to be killed in the war
and laid a stumbling block to the peace in East Asia. We will remain neutral
in our evaluations of Ming generals, such as Chen Lin and Li Rusong.

5) We have made an attempt to shed a new light on numerous officers and
soldiers under Yi Sun-shin`s command by looking into the admiral not as a
hero, but as a true leader.

Yi Sun-shin had a staff of many talented officers under his command. Some
of them include Kwon Jun, a strategist, Na Dae-yong, a scientist, and many
nameless people who assisted Na in building the turtle ships and making
armory. Besides, many other officers, including Chung Un, fought in the war,
setting their own life at naught. The drama will describe Yi Sun-shin, a man
of virtues, as the leader of these men.

6) In part, the drama will shed light on the life of the villagers at "Gonyang
Pottery" in a bid to emphasize the superiority of the culture of the Joseon
Dynasty.

The Japanese were so enthusiastic about the Joseon culture that the
Hideyoshi Invasion was called a war of porcelain bowls. Many Joseon
potters were taken as prisoners of war to Japan, where they produced china
and porcelain that later formed the basis of the economic power of the
shogunate government of Ieyasu Tokugawa in Edo, Japan. The drama is
going to lay stress on the superiority of the Joseon culture by depicting the
life and conflicts of potters at the Gonyang Pottery Village.


7) We are going to make a detailed description of the life of grass-roots
people, who underwent a war, in efforts to reiterate that such people are the
true heroes of history.

In such turbulent days, the king, senior government officials or military
leaders were not the only ones that were concerned about the future of their
country. There were merchants, who did not hesitate to donate their purses
to the national defense despite the cold treatment they received in society
based on social status; numerous army volunteers and their leaders, who
tried to save their country with their own life; and monk soldiers and their
leaders, who rose in arms in the belief that real redemption would come from
saving the country. While depicting their resolute stance, we are going to
reaffirm the stark fact that "grass-roots people are the real heroes of history."

8) We will try to shed light on the history from an objective point of view,
while also taking a look at the background of a historical view that was
instigated by the Japanese colonial government.

Some historians, including Lee Gwang-su, who have been advocates of
such a distorted historical view, have tried to attribute the outbreak of the war
and the subsequent defeat to the government officials` preoccupation in
political strifes. But this view is obviously a misjudgment. Political contests
are not a prelude to the national ruin. The Joseon society, which was an
absolute monarchy, was not ready yet to receive such a political system.

9) This drama will draw a real picture of the Joseon society, which was not
well acquainted with the international situation at the time, in a bid to learn a
lesson from this example.

In East Asia at the time, Ming was losing his influence gradually, while Yojin
was emerging as the central power in Manchuria. In Japan, Nobunaga Oda
died after putting an end to a 120-year civil war, and Hideyoshi Toyotomi took
power and unified the entire Japan. During the civil war, Japan accepted the
Western civilization and came in contact with quite a new weapon,
harquebuses. Records have it that the military capabilities of Japan at the
time were stronger than those of the European countries combined. Japan
had the high ambition to conquer East Asia based on such military
capabilities. Regrettably, there were not many people in Joseon who had a
correct understanding of the international situation.

The drama will point out, first of all, these points as the primary causes of
the 7-year Joseon-Japanese War and the ensuing bitter defeat. We are going
to look into the life of Yi Sun-shin, Yu Seong-ryong and Won Gyun who went
through such turbulent days as contemporaries. From this history, we are
going to learn a lesson for today`s Korea, a small and weak nation in the
dynamics of the international relations.