It’s been some time since I watched any K-dramas and Vagabond is my first after a 6-month lay-off. What I like about Korean series is that they tend to be short and fast-paced compared to Chinese dramas that often drag on and on. Vagabond is no different. It is an action flick that draws you in with its whodunnit plot. Check out my Vagabond review below for my verdict on this drama. If you don’t care about long-winded reviews, then just go ahead and watch it. That would be my recommendation for this Korean production.
Episodes: 16
Type: Crime, Action
Aired: September 2019
Images Credit: SBS
The Cast
- Lee Seung Gi as Cha Dal Gun
- Bae Suzy as Go Hae Ri
- Shin Sung Rok as Gi Tae Woong
- Baek Yoon Sik as Jung Kook Pyo
- Moon Sung Geun as Hong Sun Jo
- Kim Min Jong as Yun Han Gi
- Lee Gi Young as Kang Joo Chul
- Jung Man Shik as Min Jae Shik
- Hwang Bo Ra as Gong Hwa Sook
- Lee Kyung Young as Edward Park
- Moon Jung Hee as Jessica Lee
- Yoo Tae O as Jerome
- Jang Hyuk Jin as Kim Woo Gi
- Kang Kyung Hun as Oh Sang Mi
- Moon Woo Jin as Cha Hoon
The Main Characters
Cha Dal Gun
Dal Gun is a stuntman and taekwondo practitioner. He is very fit with great agility given his profession and martial arts background. Dal Gun is struggling to bring up his nephew who has been thrust into his custody.
Go Hae Ri
Hae Ri is an agent from the Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS). Her immediate superior is Min Jae Shik and her current base is in Morocco. Her aim is to gain a promotion and be sent back to the Seoul’s headquarters.
Gi Tae Woong
Gi is the head of the NIS information section. He tries to do what is right against the pressure from his boss and adversarial relationship with Min Jae Shik.
Jung Kook Pyo
Jung is the President of South Korea and has a year left before retirement. He wants to leave a legacy and maintain a clean image in public but will not hesitate to play dirty to suit his own objectives.
Hong Sun Jo
Hong is the Prime Minister and close to the President. He often advises the President on what to do and helps him when the latter runs into obstacles and ministers are not willing to toe the line.
Yun Han Gi
Yun is the Secretary of Civil Affairs. He is an aide to the President and handles many of the latter’s private and illegal matters. Yun may not always like what the President does but follows through so as to keep him in power.
Kang Joo Chul
Kang is a veteran of NIS but is out of favour with the bosses as he is unwilling to be their errand boy. He is a director at the agency in charge of psychological intelligence.
Min Jae Shik
Min is one of the directors of NIS. He is an ambitious man who just wants to climb the ranks. He does so by buttering up to the bosses and being their accomplice.
Gong Hwa Sook
Hwa Sook is Hae Ri’s good friend at the NIS.
Edward Park
Edward is head of the Dynamic Systems Corporation which is into arms production and trade. He is bidding to supply fighter jets to the South Korean government.
Jessica Lee
Jessica is the head of John and Mark Asia division, another arms manufacturer. She is competing with Edward to get the contract with the South Korean government.
Jerome
Jerome is captured in a video to be on the same flight to Morocco as Cha Hoon. He is responsible for blowing up the plane.
Kim Woo Gi
Kim is the co-pilot of the plane that crashed on the way to Morocco.
Oh Sang Mi
Oh is Kim’s wife. She is the representative of the bereaved families in seeking talks and compensation for the loss of their family members.
Cha Hoon
Hoon is Dal Gun’s nephew. He is an orphan as his mother abandoned him after the death of his father. Hence, Dal Gun is forced to take him in and raise him. While their relationship is not always smooth, they do love each other a lot. Hoon is also very good at taekwondo and is chosen as one the country’s representative for a goodwill visit to Morocco.
Synopsis
A plane bound for Morocco crashes and there are supposed to be no survivors. Dal Gun’s nephew, Hoon, is on board with a group of kids from the taekwondo club. Hoon sends Dal Gun a video clip while inside the plane before it takes off. The video captured Jerome’s face. After the crash, Dal Gun is in Morocco with other bereaved families for a memorial. He bumps into Jerome at the airport and recognizes his face. This leads him on a chase and a fight with Jerome. However, Jerome manages to escape.
The Korean embassy staff in Morocco has to take care of the bereaved families and Dal Gun gets acquainted with Hae Ri. As a result, Hae Ri is drawn into Dal Gun’s pursuit of the truth. The planed that crashed is manufactured by Dynamic Systems and this makes it difficult for them to secure the government contract to supply their fighter jets. Jessica takes advantage of the situation to blame the Dynamic Systems’ plane for mechanical failure and bribes government officials to sign the defense deal with John and Mark.
Dal Gun is determined to get to the bottom of things of who ordered the plane crash to bring justice to those who died. His investigation leads him to Jessica and corruption within the highest echelon of the government. But everything is not what it seems. So, who is the real culprit who is pulling the strings behind the scenes?
Vagabond Ending (Spoilers Alert!)
The ending brings us back to the very first scene in the beginning. So, you can say that the whole drama is a flashback of what had transpired. Dal Gun is now a member of the mercenary group called Black Sun. He infiltrates the group so as to bring it down from the inside because Black Sun is controlled by the mastermind of the plane crashed that killed Hoon.
Dal Gun’s current order is to kill a woman who is lobbying to influence an oil drilling project and take it away from Edward. This project is very important because its success can help Prime Minister Hong to be elected President. The woman turns out to be Hae Ri. Dal Gun is taken aback when he sees Hae Ri from his sniper position. He couldn’t pull the tigger. Instead, he shoots dead the other sniper to save Hae Ri. That is the ending scene of Vagabond which leaves a lot of room for viewers’ imagination.
Who Ordered The Plane Crash?
The bulk of the drama leads us to believe that Jessica is the evil one who ordered the downing of the plane and then pinned the blame on Dynamic Systems. it makes sense because she is after the government contract and Dynamic Systems is her main rival. Furthermore, she bribes her way to the contract by using sex and money to lure government officials and ministers.
However, the person who ordered the plane crash is not Jessica but Edward. It is a trap that he laid for Jessica to walk into. With the bribery allegations, President Jung has to resign and Prime Minster Hong automatically becomes acting President. Hong betrays Jung by working with Edward while Edward’s plan all along is to elevate Hong and make use of him to control all levers of government.
Is President Jung Involved?
President Jung is not involved in the plane crash but he is guilty of taking money from Jessica to give the contract to John and Mark. Yun handles the secret deal for him and he then uses Yun and Director General An of NIS as scapegoats to save his own skin. But due to Hong’s betrayal, voice recordings that point to his guilt forces him to be impeached and he has no choice but to resign.
Did Dal Gun And Hae Ri End Up Together?
No, they did not end up as a couple. Dal Gun is captured by Edward when he learns that Edward is the real culprit. Edward uses the lives of the bereaved families and Hae Ri to threaten Dal Gun into surrendering. Dal Gun is tied up in a shed together with the co-pilot who crashed the plane together with Jerome. The shed is then blown up but Dal Gun is saved by Jessica’s mercenary, Lily. But the co-pilot and Lily’s team member are burnt beyond recognition.
Hence, Dal Gun is presumed dead. Hae Ri is heartbroken but Dal Gun chooses to disappear to protect her. Dal Gun ends up hiring Lily to infiltrate the Black Sun. The money is obtained from ex-President Jung who is happy to help since it will bring down those who betrayed him. Hae Ri is dissatisfied that Dal Gun is being framed for kidnapping the co-pilot after his “death”. She goes undercover into the prison to extract information out of Jessica who has been jailed for the bribery allegations. Hae Ri learns from Jessica that the real culprit is Edward.
After their release from prison, Jessica invites Hae Ri to work for her as a lobbyist. That is why Hae Ri is in Africa to meet a royalty to get him on her side for the oil drilling project and pull the rug from under Edward’s feet and thwart Hong’s ambition to be elected President. Dal Gun is also there on orders to kill the lobbyist who turns out to be Hae Ri. As for Hae Ri, she doesn’t know that Dal Gun is still alive even until the very end.
Vagabond Review – A Great Action-Packed K-Drama?
Vagabond is a great action-filled drama to me. If you are into fights, gun battles, and car chases, Vagabond wouldn’t bore you. But it is not just senseless violence either. There is a plot behind it and a convincing storyline of why things happen the way they did. So, it is intriguing for me as I’m led down the line of a corrupted government and shady business dealings whereby everybody is selfishly looking after their own personal interests except for a few upright characters. I’m also not a big fan of Lee Seung Gi and Bae Suzy but I think they did well in Vagabond as 2 unlikely partners. They work together very well for the intense action needed in this drama.
Great… But It Has One Major Setback
I think this would put many people off from watching Vagabond – an ending that is left hanging. It is an ending that is tailor-made for a Season 2 because Hae Ri doesn’t know that Dal Gun is alive while Edward and Hong are still roaming free despite their involvement in the plane crash. So, if you are expecting a neat ending that ties up everything whereby the bad guys are sent to jail, you will be disappointed.
Since we don’t know if there will be a next season, you will have to watch Vagabond with the expectation that there is no happy ending to make you feel good. It is inconclusive that leaves you neither here nor there. The fact that Dal Gun and Hae Ri have turned into a mercenary and lobbyist respectively in their quest for revenge may also leave a sour taste in the mouth for some because it is as if they have turned into the very people they hate.
Furthermore, Vagabond is not a romance drama like Her Private Life or What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim. It is an action drama with hardly any romantic scenes although you can sense there is an underlying attraction between Dal Gun and Hae Ri. However, this attraction is not fully developed throughout the 16 episodes which some viewers might find lacking. Personally, I feel that if there is more to their love story, then the viewers’ feelings could get more intense as the drama moves towards the end.
My Verdict On Vagabond
I would recommend a watch for Vagabond despite its open ending. It is fast-paced and the storyline is good to start with especially for the first 10 to 12 episodes. There is a bit of twist and turn in the last few episodes that seems to just lengthen the show but I feel that the bulk of the story has already made its impression on me that I can easily continue all the way to the end. The political power play can be a bore to some but it is the background required for the reason the truth on the plane crash is hidden and for it to eventually unfold.
The bottom line is watch it for the action and plot but be forewarned about the ending. Then, you won’t feel that you have wasted 16 hours of your time for nothing! 🙂
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