Romance of the Three Kingdoms

by Tsai Chih Chung

Romance of the three kingdoms is one of the masterpieces of Chinese Literature. Set in the turbulent Three Kingdoms Period, the novel relates the clever political manoeuvres and brilliant battle strategies used by the ambitious rulers as they fought one another for supremacy.

Genres: Classics, History, Chinese Literature, War, Literature, Humor, Asia

140 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Tsai Chih Chung (蔡志忠) is a world-renowned cartoonist and popularizer of Chinese classics whose books have sold more than 40 millions copies worldwide. He first came to prominence through his award-winning animated movies and his immensely popular daily comic strips. When he turned his hand to the classics after a prolonged period of self-education, they were acclaimed by critics and shot to the top of the bestsellers lists.

Starting from the 1980s, Tsai created a series of Chinese comic books on ancient Chinese classics, like huangzi Speaks: The Music of Nature, Zen Speaks: Shouts of Nothingness, Confucius Speaks: Words to Live by, Sunzi Speaks: The Art of War, and The Tao Speaks: Lao Tzu's Whispers of Wisdom. Confucius, Lao Tzu, Zhuangzi, and Sunzi are widely credited as sages whose thoughts have played an important role in China's development. Tsai put his unique understanding and feelings of ancient thoughts into his cartoons, and added a modern interpretation of them, making boring ancient philosophies quite amusing as well as understandable. His works won a large number of adult readers for comic books, a market predominantly children-targeted. This series of comic books has hoarded great applause from readers both in Taiwan and Chinese mainland, with 4 million copies sold in Taiwan.

Differing from most Chinese parents, Tsai has a unique way of bringing up his daughter, stressing independence and self-reliance. His daughter even traveled to Japan by herself at the age of 12.With the influence of her father, his daughter has also become fond of cartoons. Her creativity and originality is comparable to that of her father, and many of her cartoons have been published as well. Tsai once made a comparison between human beings and wolves, stating that a parent wolf never teaches its children the necessary skills of survival, leaving the child with the challenge of acquired these skills on their own.

Reviews

[Ken Yuen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun four panel comic adaption of the Three Kingdoms stories. Some of the punchlines feel like there's something lost in translation though, but it's pretty good for the most part.

[Emir Yüksel · Rating 4 out of 5]

不错但是很夸张

[Rel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick and very funny read covering a few of the events of the famous epic.

I love this humorous take and the delightful, yet simple, artwork. The only thing that could improve the English version is further annotation for some of the jokes that don't translate well for non-Chinese speakers. A simple example would be Da Qiao and Xiao Qiao: if you didn't know that da=big and xiao=small, the the size joke lacks context, though is still funny.

[Katherine 黄爱芬 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buku komik ini isinya lucu sekali. Bakat author memang memparodikan sejarah Cina dan kali ini zaman keruntuhan Dinasti Han hingga terbentuknya 3 negara atau yg terkenal dgn nama Sam Kok.

Bab-bab di buku ini cuma membahas yg penting saja, spt asal mula persaudaraan tiga serangkai Liu Bei, Zhang Fei dan Guan Yu. Perebutan Diao Chan oleh Lu Bu dan bapak angkatnya yg zolim, Dong Wu. Pertemuan tiga serangkai dgn Kong Ming atau si Naga 🐉 Tidur. Dan terakhir tentu saja pertempuran paling melegenda, di Chi Bi alias Tebing Merah yg mengubah susunan Tiongkok saat itu mjd Sam Kok.

Parodi yg paling menohok adalah apa saja melibatkan uang 💸 entah untuk sogokan, bayaran, persekot dll. Bahkan Diao Chan aja nggak sukarela melakukan perannya sbg alat pemecah belah persekutuan Lu Bu dgn Dong Wu, ayah angkatnya. Diao Chan sudah menetapkan tarif sebelumnya, dan ayah angkatnya juga menetapkan tarif Diao Chan pd Dong Wu juga 😂😂😂😂 No money, jangan harap bisa bawa gadisku 🤭😂😂

Yah untuk senyam senyum dan ketawa ngikik, buku ini sangat membantu. Tapi untuk mempelajari sejarahnya, agak sulit. Sptnya lebih bagus yg sudah pernah baca Sam Kok barulah membaca buku ini jadi tahu dimana unsur humornya.

[Huỳnh Dũng]

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a document book about 3 strongest country in China in late 14th century. There are Nguy, Thuc, Ngo. All of them used the reason the reason to serve the King to unify the country, but they are all for their own benefit. This was one of my favorite books. It shows we see thế strategic skills as well as strength and intelligence of ancient China.

[Mohd Jamizal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really easy to understand and remember all the characters i reread this because Malaysia will hold its 15 general election . To understand the story kind of similar situation in Malaysia.

[Indah Threez Lestari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dari semua versi Sam Kok yang pernah kubaca, versi yang satu ini yang paling konyol dan kocak. Disusun dalam bentuk komik empat kolom, komik ini tidak menghilangkan substansi ceritanya, hanya membuatnya lebih ringan dan penuh humor.

[Herdi Naufal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baca buku ini dulu waktu lagi seneng senengnya sama sejarah cina. Buku ini berbentuk komik humor empat panel. Merupakan komplemen yang tepat bagi kalian yang udah nonton Romance of The Three Kingdom versi film. Edisi Indonesianya udah ada, waktu itu beli di Gramedia

[Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Chinese historical writing!