Director Baek Sang Hoon of SBS's ongoing drama series 'The King: Eternal Monarch' has shared a lengthy post of apology via the drama's official website, referencing the production's most latest controversy. 

Previously, back on April 17 during the premiere of 'The King: Eternal Monarch', the title sequence of the drama showcased a parallel scene between Korea as a democracy and Korea as a monarchy. Shortly afterward, controversy arose as viewers pointed out that many of the buildings shown in the city in the Korean monarchy contained architectural designs representative of Japanese temples. At the time, the production staff of 'The King' apologized in an official statement by admitting that the mistakes were entirely due to the production staff's carelessness. 

Then, during episode 6 of 'The King: Eternal Monarch' aired back on May 2, another controversy arose surrounding a scene where the Korean monarchy engages in a naval battle against the parallel universe's Japan. After the broadcast, many netizens pointed out that the 'Japanese warship' shown in the drama, carrying the Japanese flag on board, very closely resembled historically representative naval ship designs of the Korean navy. 

In his personal apology, director Baek Sang Hoon began, "I absolutely did not mean to depict a Korean warship as if it belonged to Japan." He continued, "We began filming for this scene some time back in mid-January, and originally, we planned to compete the scene by open sourcing reference materials. We made preparations to film our CG sources later toward the end of January overseas, before deciding to purchase any more necessary resources and go into 3D production. However, due to the COVID19 breakout, we were unable to travel overseas for reference filming. Later, the COVID19 situation worsened so that we could not even carry out necessary fillings in Korea. In the end, we sorted to purchasing reference materials for the 3D production." 

Director Baek admitted, "I am not a professional, so I was not able to differentiate between the particular warship designs of each country and felt that they were all rather similar at first glance; furthermore, I should have checked more specific details regarding our purchased reference material but I failed to do so."

Finally, director Baek relayed, "I sincerely apologize for causing viewers discomfort, due to my carelessness, failing to check necessary details and using the current situation as an excuse to cover for my error... I will edit the controversial scenes in question as soon as possible so that there will be no more discomfort in the drama's rerun episodes or VOD service content."