Song of the Bandits

Song of the Bandits | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix K-Content

It looks like a Western, but it's set in Korea, so does that make it an Eastern? The show has a bit of comic-book flavor, but that's okay, we don't really want to look too closely at what's going on here. In reality it's pretty awful, so we'll pull back a bit and let our focus be a bit fuzzy. We're in early 20th century Korea and we've got people wearing Western clothes, riding horses and carrying great big six guns. The landscape looks like the American west - wide open plains with mountains off in the distance. I suppose there could be places like that in Korea, but I haven't found any. Kind of reminds me of Clint Eastwood's old Spaghetti Westerns.

Japan invaded Korea in 1910 and occupied it until the end of WW2. The Joseon Empire that ruled the country collapsed at the end of the 19th century. Now we have Japanese soldiers roaming around the country shooting anyone they choose, and we have gangs of bandits roaming around the country shooting anyone they choose, and we have the resistance army roaming around the country shooting anyone they choose, and then we've got the peasants, who mostly just get shot. Very violent.

The story has more bad situations than any show I have seen since I don't know when. The story revolves around a half dozen Koreans. Two guys, a master and his slave, joined the Japanese army. The story starts with the slave heading north to make amends for previous misdeeds. He feels his just punishment would be his death, and he is fine with that. The man who he has wronged (by killing his family) no longer wants revenge, he is simply trying to preserve the lives of local villagers. The master is fully in thrall with the Japanese, even though he is still second class, his being Korean and all. He is disappointed in his slave, who had become his friend, but now that he has gone north, he is just one more rebel to be destroyed.

Then there is the black market arms dealer. A mature woman, dressing in the latest Western fashions, operating out of a brick, four story hotel in what looks like Topeka, Kansas in 1880. She keeps her inventory well stocked by sending her minions out to scavenge arms from the dead whenever there is a battle.

Another woman is a hitman, killing people for a price. She gets to display her talents in, I think, episode 2 where she goes all John Wick on an entire company of soldiers in a hotel.

Lastly we have a femme fatale, a real Mati Hari, who is in love with the slave, but pretends to be in love with the master to the point of marrying him, in order to get military information that can help the rebels. She has also wormed her way into the railway company's administration, so she is privy to all kinds of top secret info.

Korea Railroad Map
From a screenshot taken just after the eleven minute mark of episode one

The Japanese want to extend their rail line farther north. They want to use it to transport troops north to fight the rebels. To this end they ship 200,000 won (worth about $10 million in today's money) north via an armored car. Rumor gets out about this shipment and the colonel in charge wants to cancel the operation, but his subordinate (the master) wants to let it go ahead because it is sure to attract the bandits and when they attack he will be there to crush them.

Our girl assassin gets wind of this shipment and manages to locate the manager of the bank that will be shipping the money. She pays him a visit and tells him that the bandits are going to rob the armored car and since they will undoubtedly be successful, they should fill the strongbox with dirt and keep the money. The bandits will get blamed and the manager and the assassin will get off scott free. Clever, if all goes according to plan, but something tells me that's not going to happen.

Until I saw this show I had no idea what happened in Korea prior to the Korean war. My history education kind of missed that. As far as I knew, prior to the Korean War, Korea didn't exist. That they have managed to come so far since then is flat-out amazing.

One of the things that bugs me about Korean shows are the times someone laughs at something that is not funny. I don't know whether this is a common screen writer's trick to ensure that the audience knows that this character is an idiot, or whether it reflects actual behaviors. Pretty weird in any case.