Song of the Bandits Legend Dramas

Song of the Bandits (Korean: 도적: 칼의 소리) is a 2023 South Korean streaming television series directed by Hwang Jun-hyuk, written by Han Jeong-hoon, and starring Kim Nam-gil, Seohyun, Yoo Jae-myung, and Lee. Hyun Wook and Lee Ho Jung. It was released on Netflix on September 22, 2023.

Bandits in the lawless nation of Gando will do anything to defend their beloved homeland and loved ones, even if it means risking their lives.

Song of the Bandits is set in the early 20th century, during the Japanese rule of the Korean peninsula, and it centers on Lee Yoon (Kim Nam-gil), a Korean Lieutenant in the Japanese Army who deserts. He searches for Choi Choong-soo (Yoo Jae-myung), whose base he exposed to the Japanese six years earlier when he betrayed the whereabouts of civilian militias battling the Japanese for their independence, burdened by his deeds. Soon after, Yoon and Choong-soo team together to form their own bandit gang to protect the civilians from the impacts of this internal strife in Gando, a no-man’s land where mounted bandits, Japanese police, and the Chinese all battle for dominance.

This necessarily means defending against both the Japanese troops and mounted bandits from Japan. The show succeeds in capturing the arid grit of westerns as Yoon and his band ride across vast expanses of desolate desert on horses while robbing Japanese armored trucks. But that doesn’t entirely water down the narrative that centers on the Korean independence movement. Although it starts out slowly, the show gradually picks up speed as it introduces its large ensemble of people and begins to weave the distinctive independence movements of various societal strata.

Plot Synopsis by Legend Dramas

The story is set in the 1920s, at the height of the tumultuous Japanese occupation, when the people of Joseon had been driven out of their homes and sent to Japan. To defend the Korean country, those traveling to the lawless nation of Gando join forces.

While South Korea was occupied by the Japanese, many fled to China’s Jiandao, a lawless region. The travelers make themselves at home there and band together to defend their town from danger. Major figures include:

A Korean named Lee Yoon (Kim Nam-Gil) works for the Japanese military in South Korea. He must leave everything behind due to circumstances in order to go to Jiandao, China. To defend the Jiandao town and its residents, he turns as a bandit.

For the Japanese-controlled government in Korea, Nam Hee-Shin (Seohyun) works as a department chief while concealing her true identity.

Choi Chung-Soo (Yoo Jae-Myung) is the head of the Korean colony in Jiandao and served as an army commander for the Korean independence movement.

An enemy of Lee Yoon is the Japanese military officer Lee Gwang-Il (Lee Hyun-Wook).

Contract murderer Eon-Nyeon (Lee Ho-Jung) is an expert marksman. She goes to Jiandao to fulfill her contract after being paid to kill Lee Yoon.

Storyline

Gando is the land of the desperate, the realm of the desperados of Joseon. In the 1920s, it was also a territory in which political responsibilities and affiliations were vaguely regulated. Some things may remind you of the Wild West. Yet this Wild North in the Far East is quite different…

“Song of the Bandits” is a brilliant Netflix historical drama about a certain chapter of recent Korean history. Moving. Captivating. Cinematic. It exudes the vibes of an Eastern. The KDrama surely is gory action and turbulence at most times, but offers impressive quiet and heartwarming tuning, too. Action-packed it is, yet humor and romance modestly fit in as well. “Song of the Bandits” is astonishingly well balanced in this respect and for a Netflix production, despite its polished and action-driven choreography for a broad international audience, sticks surprisingly consistently to a more subtle Korean series style. Nicely done at all scales. We get a feeling of the Manchurian landscape with Gando impressions filmed at original locations.

This all framed within a consistently beautiful soundtrack. It all lasts for 9 episodes (only! Yet?). In spite the overall ambitious commercial production context, aiming at an international “Squid Game”-like success, “Song of the Bandits” was able to impress me with a historically and emotionally complex story with great mimes – Kim Nam-gil, Yoo Jae-myung, Lee Ho-jung and Lee Hyun-wook in their element. But so is everyone else. This is where KDrama and Netflix perfectly come together…

Review

‘Bandit: The Song of the Sword’ is the original title. In fact, people don’t swing swords so much as they use firearms. The KDrama is epically processed, offers great emotions, while telling about people and the range of motives for which people are prepared to fight. It’s about resistance, obedience, venality, oppression, social affiliation, the fight for freedom. There are even some spiritual thoughts attached to it along the way. It is about the Joseon people, some personal fate, as well as ‘the’ history of Chosen – an emotionally quite ´Korean´ excerpt of modern history. Its thematic historic setting (even if the rest of the world might not care so much about it. As it is not requisite for an entertaining series pleasure) contains a lot of explosive material by Korean standards. Therefore firearms are in several respects quite consistent in this context…

As far as I am concerned, I do care about the historical context. On the contrary, I find it quite intriguing – besides the dramaturgically action-packed and emotionally charged story with its complex, interwoven relationship dynamics and conflicts. As I said, you don’t really need to know the background to be enthusiastic about “Song of the Bandits”. But if anyone might be interested, see the historical side note about ‘Gando’. The border region on the north bank of the Tumen river, which today also marks the border between northeast China and North Korea.