"Hail to the Emperor!" deals with the heated competition of imperial world powers around Korea at the end of the 19th century and goes on through the Japanese colonial era, the Korean War and the period of military dictatorial rule, penetrating through the modern history of Korea. With a Don Quixote-esque protagonist, the novel adopts a rich traditional style of prose displaying a comprehensive understanding of traditional East Asian literature, and drawing readers into the narrative with powerful descriptions of the turbulent history of Korea. Michelle Tanenbaum, in a review of the influence of Cervantes' Don Quixote on Korean literature concluded that Yi's "Hail to the Emperor!" was highly successful in capturing the spirit of the original novel. The protagonist, always referred to as the Emperor, "manifests a madness for excessive reading; he seeks out adventures that are directed toward the search for justice; he is accompanied by assistants who are equally mad; he inhabits the world of the past, which of course has vanished; and finally, he repeatedly commits insane acts, transforming the work into a comedy."