As the film The King's Warden (hereafter "Wangsanam"), which captures one year of exile in the life of Joseon's sixth king, Danjong, became a box-office hit, sales of books covering the "Annals of the Joseon Dynasty" increased. The old novel "The Tragic Love of Danjong," which recounts Danjong's history, was also reissued.
According to Kyobo Book Centre on the 4th, from Feb. 4, the official release date of "Wangsanam," to Mar. 2, sales over roughly a month of books with the keyword "Annals of the Joseon Dynasty" rose 2.9 times compared with the pre-release period. That was also a 2.1-fold surge from the same period a year earlier. It appears more readers visited bookstores to read the real story of Danjong depicted in the film.
Among related books, the top sellers included ▲ "Seol Minseok's Annals of the Joseon Dynasty" (Seol Minseok) ▲ "The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty in One Volume" (Park Young-gyu) ▲ "The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty Told by the King" (Jo Ara). In particular, among Lee Deok-il's multi-volume "Annals of the Joseon Dynasty" set, the "Sejong–Munjong–Danjong" volume drew the most attention.
The novel "The Tragic Love of Danjong," with Danjong as the protagonist and written by Yi Gwangsu (1892–1950), was also reissued. Serialized in DONG-A ILBO from 1928 to 1929, "The Tragic Love of Danjong" has fallen out of copyright protection 70 years after the author's death. After the film's release, last month at Saeum the novel was newly published, and at Open Books and The Story it is on pre-order ahead of publication.
Meanwhile, "Wangsanam" is on track to surpass 10 million viewers this week. According to the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) integrated computer network for movie theater admissions on the day, "Wangsanam" drew 194,493 moviegoers the previous day, bringing its cumulative total to 9,407,833.