Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Song Of The Bandits’ On Netflix, About A Man Who Protects His Countrymen In A Lawless Region

Shows about lawless regions in the late 1800s or early 1900s aren’t just the domain of Taylor Sheridan, and they don’t all take place in North America. In a new Korean series, a man gathers a group of Joseons in Northeast China who are sick of having their lives disrupted by both Japanese soldiers and mercenary bandits.

SONG OF THE BANDITS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “Gyeongseong, October, 1915.” A truck goes through the streets, carrying the Japanese flag, telling landowners to declare their land to the occupying Japanese government.

The Gist: Lee Yoon (Kim Nam-gil) is getting drunk when he gets a note saying that a man he was looking for has been found in Gando, an area of Northeast China where his fellow Joseons are living in a lawless land. Yoon was a former Japanese solder who has major regrets about something that happened in the area six years prior, and he feels he needs to go back there. To do so, he has to defy his master, Major Lee Kwang-il (Lee Hyun-wook), who brought Yoon into the army when he was Major Lee’s slave. The major is incensed that Yoon would defy him, and he vows he should have killed Yoon six years prior.

Yoon makes his way by train to Gando, where he reconnects with Kim Seon-bok (Cha Chung-hwa), a fellow former slave, who now has made money selling guns to anyone who will buy them: independence fighters, Japanese soldiers, or the mounted bandits that basically fight for whoever will pay them. As she tells Yoon about how chaotic the region is, “Chinese land, Japanese money and Joseon’s people,” and no one has taken charge.

He tells her that he’s “not here to live,” being pretty cryptic. The next day, he sets out for the village where Choi Chung-soo (Yoo Jae-myung) lives; he’s the man Yoon wants to talk to. In fact, he hopes that Choi, after finding out that Yoon was the soldier who initiated the killing of Choi’s entire family at the hand of Major Lee six years prior, that Choi will kill him on the spot. When he spies Eon-neyoni (Lee Ho-jung), a peasant who just arrived to work for Choi, he sees hands that have held a gun; he finds out she’s been sent by Major Lee to kill him. After a fight, he tells her he wants Choi to kill him.

When he finally tells Choi about what happened when he was a Japanese soldier, Choi is about to shoot an arrow in him, when a more urgent matter comes up: Bandits have invaded the village. They end up killing a number of people and kidnapping a teenage girl. Yoon makes his way back into town and gets some guns from Seon-bok. His plan: Take on the gang of bandits himself. As he picks off the gang one by one, Seon-bok describes how Yoon’s skills are so advanced that if anyone can take on a whole gang, he can.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The action sequences in Song Of The Bandits gave us strong Kill Bill vibes.

Our Take: The history that backs the story of Song Of The Bandits is a little confusing, but it’s because the situation in that region, during a time of Japanese occupation, was completely chaotic. What the first episode of the series does a good job of setting up is that Lee Yoon is going to lead his own group of independence soldiers, gathered from people like Choi, whose land and people have been victimized by both the Japanese and the bandits for far too long.

What we wonder is how this will take shape. Will he train people to be elite fighters like him? He won’t always be able to take on groups of gangs by himself. But it seems like he’ll have a ragtag group of his own bandits, but acting in protection of the Joseons in the region.

Then there’s the matter of Major Lee. He’ll get wind that Yoon is still alive, and he’ll likely keep sending soldiers like Eon-neyoni to kill him. In fact, we’ll likely see Eon-neyoni again, and we’re interested in seeing if she becomes a nemesis to Yoon or if he’ll eventually turn her into an ally.

All that being said, the action scenes — at least the ones we could discern, given that a few of them take place at night or inside some dark buildings — were well-done, even if they fall into the usual trope that shows supposed elite fighters flailing away before being killed by Yoon.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Yoon tells Choi, “If you fight to protect your family, that would make you a bandit, wouldn’t it?”

Sleeper Star: Cha Chung-hwa’s role of Kim Seon-bok seems like it’ll be small but pivotal, because she knows Yoon the best and knows what he’s capable of.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Yoon is riding into town with Seon-bok, the carriage they’re in pauses for a sandstorm. We get why they want to show the harsh conditions in that part of China, but it seems to be a superfluous scene.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Song Of The Bandits has good action sequences, and the first episode does a good job of setting up the show’s premise.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.