I have long enjoyed reading historical fiction. I also watch films based on history and for that reason, I bought the film version for the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”—an epic of China’s history.
Don’t let the title fool you. This story is not about a boy-girl romance. It’s about the bloody, backstabbing romance of politics, war, and conquest.
The novel was written in the 14th century by Luo Guanzhong and was more than a thousand pages long with 120 chapters. After the Han Dynasty collapsed (206 BC to 219 AD), China shattered into three warring kingdoms.
This story was written using historical sources and is about how China was reunified as one nation again. I’ve seen the television series once and plan to watch it again someday if I live long enough. The DVD version has 84 episodes and runs for more than fifty hours. It has even been made into a game.
There have been seven films produced from this story and a long list of television series. To learn how complex this story is, just scroll through the Wiki’s page of Romance of the Three Kingdoms TV series. The total cast of characters might numb your mind. Imagine keeping track of them all.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.
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