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About Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1994)
Cinematic History
The 1994 Romance of the Three Kingdoms was a tremendous national effort, being the first modern, full TV adaption of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms' entire text, coming right after the successful adaptations of Journey to the West and Dream of the Red Chamber in the mid-late 80s.
A lot of resources and manpower were used. The shooting was hectic, the budget stretched thin (which is especially apparent in the action scenes and shot-to-shot editing), and there was a lot of struggle behind the scenes. This is why sometimes actors get replaced for less notable, B-tier characters due to scheduling conflicts, and costumes for background soldiers are extremely rough, even for the time of filming (esp. compared to the 1985 [Mainland] Zhuge Liang show and 1983's Hua Tuo and Cao Cao film).
	Still, the end product is indisputable. A lot of care and effort went into polishing the writing and delivering all of the key moments in the best possible way, and RoTK 1994 is to this day considered one of the greatest historical dramas of China (others in the list includes Ming Dynasty in 1566, Towards the Republic and Yongzheng Dynasty, all phenomenal shows and also all as of now available on Youtube with English subs—highly recommended that if you want to see what the classiest Chinese period-dramas look like. These products can easily match with any western historical shows like I, Claudius, and even arguably surpass them in many ways)
To this day, all the performances are considered the most definitive take on those characters bar none, with most exceptional performances being Bao Guo’an’s Cao Cao, Tang Guoqiang’s Zhuge Liang, Hong Yuzhou's Zhou Yu (and young Yuan Shao), and Lu Shuming’s Guan Yu, some of the most charismatic presences in any Chinese drama shows, regardless of historical period.

The Work’s Accuracy in Depicting the Time Period    
	The art design of Three Kingdoms (1994)'s is quite loyal to the aesthetic of the actual Han dynasty unlike most popular depictions even today that are basically basing design off of late medieval times. Props, architecture, decor, and costumes are all based on actual historical data and archeological findings of the time. For example, the black and red robes & hats worn by the court officials during court meetings is a replica of the actual court regalia worn by the civil and military officials in the Han dynasty respectively. 
The iconic red-and-black lacquerware and artwork of the Han Dynasty decorate every interior of this series, all of them based on real artifacts discovered in Han-dynasty tombs.
Of course, not all of it is accurate; there's still some Bronze Age "Jué"-cups showing up from time to time for example, and the generals still wear armor from the Song dynasty, and the soldiers wear basically whatever they could throw together within a limited budget (i.e. not much).
Also notable is that some of the cavalry/officers' armours in the show are actually borrowed or replicated from the armours used in the Chinese-Japanese produced historical film Dunhuang/The Silk Road from 1988.[a] Still, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is more consistent than even some of the modern historical fiction in which even more anachronistic Bronze Age/Warring States aesthetics and miscellaneous Ming/Qing dynasty elements are randomly thrown in, or just look plain tacky and ahistorical, even though people should know better by now (even Total War Three Kingdoms does this!).[b]
[a] The Dunhuang/The Silk Road is a great film by the way. Highly recommended.
[b] If you want to see a Three Kingdoms media that is 100% authentic to the Han dynasty's look and feel, I highly recommend the Hua Tuo and Cao Cao film from 1983 and Li Fazeng's Zhuge Liang TV show from 1985 (not to be confused with the HK one from the same year). Both have costuming and sets that are excellent, arguably even better than the 1994 edition of RoTK in a lot of places, although the available quality for them is worse than 1994’s RoTK, sadly. The upcoming The Wind Blows From Longxi looks nice too, and, of course, the Red Cliff movies also shows off how well they did their research.)

The Work’s Accuracy in Use of Classical Chinese
	The language of the show is all written directly after the style of the original novel's Classical Chinese, virtually without breaks. This is coupled with lines already lifted from either the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel or from Records of Three Kingdoms, text from the actual history written by Chen Shou, which is demonstrated by the hardcoded subs for important statements throughout the show. 
This makes for a very poetic and "period-authentic" watching experience that engages you much more so than later adaptations like 2010's Three Kingdoms—which has very inconsistent and outright comical writing. Most English viewers would never know how poor the 2010 3K's dialogue actually is in its native Chinese.
However, the 1994 3K’s text makes translating the show more complicated and its lyrical style even harder to convey. We the team are not able to write in equivalent Edwardian English or using Lattimore's language on the Iliad to "localize" the text, so this is the best we can do. Should more people join with greater literary talents than ours, perhaps we can be able to remedy this situation.

The Work’s Quality in Adapting to Modern Audiences
	This is one thing the show does put a lot of effort into as it was painstakingly thought out how to best adapt the material. There's a lot of newly-written scenes and material to fit for television—I can't list all of them, but suffice to say, they all elevate the story and never come across as out-of-place.
The 1994 version is probably the first modern adaptation of Three Kingdoms that shows a more multifaceted and "heroic" version of Cao Cao (pay attention in particular to the newly added scenes in episodes 22 and 23 not found in the original text, as well as Cao Cao's real poems inserted in the episodes) and a fairer, more nobler depiction of Zhou Yu and Wei Yan. You will also notice that Sun Ce's death happens quite differently but arguably is rendered more sensibly than in the original text, and it falls in line in the historical text as well.
These are some of the more major changes, there are many more subtle moments to add in character or explain disperacies in the original material.
	Another minor point to 1994's favour is how it depicts Diaochan, as well as Lady Zou, and their story. While expectedly Three Kingdoms is set and written in an era where women had a lower social station, and the show does reflect that warts and all, there are still places where the producers acknowledge that unfortunate history. Diaochan's story is recognized principally as one of tragedy and sacrifice, one no doubt quite common for women across history, and depicted as such. The resulting conclusion to it is far more tasteful and even beautiful than any modern Dynasty Warriors-informed / 2010's version of a forced Lü Bu x Diaochan romance.
These are just a few examples of how the 1994 version actually had elevated the material significantly in it's own right.

Quality of the Video from 1994
	Sadly, due to how terrible media preservation of old films and TV shows often is in China, tracking down decent quality RAWs is not easy. Some of the episodes thus are using some higher resolution fan restorations that are available, but not all. Some episodes will still be using OK-ish but lower resolution footage depending on availability. We apologize in advance for the quality inconsistency with the footage (especially the very rough episode 20 footage).

Hardcoded Subtitles
	Within the 1994 adaptation, often grand, important dialogue exchanges (often quoted from the original novel or the historical text) are given on-screen Chinese subtitles, which are unremovable and hardcoded into the footage of every episode of RoTK (1994). This is less of a problem in Chinese but definitely a problem when subtitling. The text has thus been translated and put above the original lines, which is inelegant but by far the best option at the moment.

Terms in Context and Translation Notes
	Translating some of the government titles was expectedly difficult as many of the offices in the Late Han Dynasty don't have a suitable English equivalent and, because of how Imperial Chinese politics were, also much more "advanced/complex" than what many European medieval feudal governments could muster. Using Roman/Byzantine governmental terms, while probably closer to the mark, would add another layer of confusion. On top of that, the political situation in the Late Han dynasty was also very idiosyncratic. 
For many of the titles, we mostly consulted Jack L. Dull's translations, but some had to be changed for better layman comprehension.
Examples:
	For the title of "刺史(Cìshĭ)," it was decided to translate it as "Overseer" rather than as Dull's "Inspector" because while the "Cishi" were originally provincial inspectors whose duties were supervising administrators of a commandery, by the Late Han to Three Kingdoms period, the Cishi's duties had in practice expanded into being the stationed governors of a commandery capable of running their own militaries. Thus, "Overseer" was deemed slightly more suitable as it is ambiguous enough to imply both a supervisory role while also not precluding an administrative one.
Another similar term, "州牧(Zhoumu)," is also changed from the oft-seen "Governor" to "Provincial Lord/Potentate." This is because "Zhoumu" are almost completely unique to only the most tumultuous time periods, like the Late Han, existing when all central governmental control has been lost and when officials acquire direct governance over an entire province and no longer answer to imperial command outside formalities.
The "Three Excellencies" are also alternatively called "Ducal Ministers" from time to time, as both tend to be equally as used.
Notes on Poetry
	All of Cáo Cāo's poetry that shows up throughout the show are the actual poems written by the real-life historical figure. Cáo Cāo was not only a literati, but also a forerunner of the "Jian'an Style" (建安風骨) in the Late Han dynasty, which was a literary movement that broke away from the inflexibilities of the past and emphasized heightened emotional realism and reflection of self and society.
Among the other most important figures of this movement are Cao Cao's sons, Cao Zhi and Cao Pi, and also the "Seven Scholars of Jian'an" which included familiar faces like Kong Rong and Chen Lin.
Chen Lin's Denunciation Essay against Cao Cao (that is recited in episodes 15 and 23) is the actual original historical text, albeit truncated slightly, unlike every other adaptation of Three Kingdoms oddly enough, such as 2010. Translating these texts is probably the most difficult thing to do since there is no available English translation (as far as I know), so I had to do it all in scratch and in subtitle form!
Still, it is all worth it. If the TV show would put this much effort in representing classical Chinese culture, we can't help but to at least put in even just a fraction of that in doing this fansub.

***

HISTORY VS. ROMANTICISM
I highly recommend watching Cool History Bros' youtube videos on Three Kingdoms explaining the fact vs. fiction aspect and their reasoning. It succinctly summarizes this info much better than I can! 
(Historical Liu Bei's Dirty Trick for Success - Three Kingdoms History: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt-sYU1EQ8Q
History vs Fiction - Your Three Kingdoms Questions Answered!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4RdCqvugL4)

	Being a romanticized folklore version of history from centuries ago, there's obviously a lot of artistic liberties taken, most notably in RoTK's depiction of warfare. Many of the real-life campaigns in history are truncated and even abstracted from how they were in history. 
Duels between generals would've been an extremely rare occurrence after the Bronze Ages since obviously you wouldn't want your leading military officers to engage—and potentially die—for nothing (though still not totally unheard of—for instance, Guan Yu vs. Yan Liang did actually happen, and it turned the tide of battle. And still, it wasn't so much a duel as it was Guan Yu apparently tank-ing through entire battalions to get to Yan Liang and then one-shotting him. Arguably more impressive than if it were a duel, honestly).
However, since RoTK is a folkloric version of history, most common people of the time would have a hard time grasping complex military tactics, so many of the engagements between these generals are shortened from skirmishes to personal duels for audience comprehension. Guan Yu, who in history is recorded as already being a tremendously capable general, a fact attested to by his contemporaries, thus also becomes the peerless warrior that he is popularly depicted as.
Similarly, regarding the "mental" side of things, guys like Zhuge Liang or Xun Yu, whose main contributions are in politics and administration, are harder to write engaging stories for (Zhuge Liang's military achievements only really started happening later in his life), so their roles become one of war strategy and tactical contribution with their other roles more inferred.
Think of how in Song of Roland, the scarcely-recorded Roland goes from being Charlemagne's military governor to being a superpowered Paladin hero with a magic sword.
So, when viewing RoTK, you definitely should be tuned to that same mindset as you would be when reading the Iliad, Arthurian texts, or Shakespeare. 

	The military numbers are pretty ludicrous at times with tens of thousands of men just casually thrown around. This is apparently based on a habit in Chinese history where sometimes officials and officers would fudge the numbers to confuse the enemy and make their armies more impressive (you see this happening in Records as well). It might also simply be that historians then had odd head-counting standards and storytellers liking big numbers, but it's more reasonable than there being literally just that many people in each army at the time.

	While obviously exaggerated and simplified for the masses, there are still many kernels of truth within Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms (especially compared to prior popular retellings of the Three Kingdoms period in history, like Sanguozhi Pinghua). 
Cao Cao's administration was functional but also ruthless and cut-throat (example: the "Tuntian" system kept famines down but were effectively labor-camps, as well as brutal policy of massacring populations that didn’t immediately surrender), while Liu Bei’s government (later formalized by Zhuge Liang), based on available historical data, was much more fair and benign, making them more popular among the commoners to this very day. Hence, there are many depictions of Cao Cao as more villainous and Liu Bei as more heroic, a tradition that goes as far back as the Tang or Song dynasties.
It's a very classic pre-modern style of story writing that is similar to Arthurian Legends or the aforementioned Song of Roland, where the Good Man/Fighter becomes a Good King/Leader, which leads to a Good (or well-managed) Nation.
It can also be fun reading the real history to compare or provide extra context to some of the events depicted. It is definitely recommended for one to consult a map for some of the locations thrown around in RoTK in case of confusion. Geography and its associated politics obviously plays a big part in RoTK, as it did in actual history (Hanzhong's significance in Liu Bei's campaign, et cetera.)

Donations
This is purely a fan effort done for non-commercial purposes. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is copyrighted by 中国国际电视总公司, which produced the TV series, so we cannot accept any donations.

These subs are not to be sold and redistributed commercially.

Final Word
A lot of care and hard work was prepared for this release. We hope you enjoy the release!
- ZL181, and Houston R, 汉朝中郎 Gentlemen of the Hàn