Vagabond

Nonstop Action

This was one of the most creative and exciting action/suspense dramas I’ve ever seen. Every episode had me on the edge of my seat. Time and time again the leads found themselves in situations with seemingly no way out. The bad guys kept piling up and you never knew what side anyone was on. The action starts in the very first episode and didn’t sop. Has to be one of my favorites.

I had only seen Lee Seung Gi in a couple of reality shows where he was funny and friendly, but after watching Vagabond, this man has earned my respect as one of the best actors out there.

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Incomplete by design!

As per usual, such dramas start with abroad locations and a big budget just to serve us with whatever later on. While the drama had action later on but it wasn't on the same level of its earlier episodes. The plot itself couldn't compensate for that. There was a certain level of carelessness and ridiculousness in a non-comical setting from the director that's impossible to explain other than being intentional to maintain the dumb action vibes like a B grade action flick. It got progressively challenging to tolerate regardless of its "supposed" entertainment value. After what they had done in this 16-episodes runtime, they had the audacity to keep all threads as open as possible for a direct sequel, which will never happen! Was it some kind of a practical joke? Other than some of the action scenes and a handful of selected moments, I can't see much value in this drama.

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Amazing but not complete without Season 2

Excellent throughout but ended abruptly. 2-4 more episodes would have given us a complete and satisfying ending.

Everyone, Writer(s), Director, Cast, Crew, etc., did 120% to make this a truly riveting story. And I was truly invested in the story as well as the characters. Yes, fantastical in parts, but that’s the essence of these kinds of action adventure thrillers. Young Hoon’s death was never lost in the plot and Dal- Geon never lost his purpose in seeking and exposing the truth.

BTW- some movies are designed to give viewers a glimpse of reality or offer a warning of what may be to come. I hope this story is not even a small reflection of Korea’s government as I’ve come to love Korea and her people and only wish the best for them and their country as we are very significant allies (here in the US, we’re just crawling out of what seems, in my opinion, the worst 15+ year scandal in our 250-year history - and we’ve had a few big ones).

I would have been disappointed if this drama had been wrapped up too quickly with an overall sloppy ending as is the case with some dramas. Great as it was, it ended with the obvious set up to allow the story to continue.

So, you incredible Korean story tellers…., where is the rest of this amazing story????

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Kdrama Action Genre when it's peaks !!! Truly Action Cinematic Experience

Vagabond raised my standards in Action Dramas.


The drama is about a stuntman named Cha Dal Gun (played by Lee Seung Gi) who teams up with an NIS (National Intelligence Service) agent named Go Hae Ri (played by Suzy) in order to uncover the truth behind the plane crash that killed his nephew.

Action and Plot Work :-

Drama primarily runs with the investigation of Cha Dal Gun trying to reveal the truth of the plane crash, but in the background the story extends with big twists and turns power scandals of S Korea.
As an action lover, Vagabond is a great action epic drama for me. If you are into fights, gun battles, and car chases, then this is for you. I'm sure Vagabond wouldn’t bore you. Behind Every action scene there is a plot behind it and a convincing storyline for why things happen the way they do. The story looks small but after getting ep by ep the storyline unfolds a big puzzle. The drama has enough suspense and fast-paced action to keep us on the edge of our seats every episode, and that’s largely thanks to the incredible acting talent of Lee Seung Gi, Suzy and other co actors and also this drama offers a solidly entertaining take on the sub-plots ( government, politics, scandals, middle power, NIS).
Vagabond has an intricately crafted plot and decent production quality of Netflix and SBS.

Actors:-
This is my first Lee Seung-gi drama watching his action scenes can't control myself to fan for him.
He was fantastic by delivering so much intense emotion combined with some seriously awesome action. He was just impressive in every way.
Suzy ( Go Hae ri ) one of my favourite actresses after Vagabond, as a rookie NIS agent who is working overseas and fallen love with Cho Dal Gun ( Lee Seung-Gi) to try to help him given phenomenal acting, her raw characterization suited very well. Hopefully, she will return soon to the action genre again.
Primarily this is not a complete clean rom-drama, but the chemistry between Lee Seung-Gi & Bae Suzy carried the whole drama with action and swoon-worthy.
Also it already forms the outlines of a classic love triangle between its two leads and another male character.


Camera work:-

The filming took place in several locations; Portugal, Morocco and South Korea. The cinematography of ‘Vagabond’ was really well done. The action scenes were well shot. I love the fact that they hardly used shaky cams, yep shaky cam work in action chasing dramas is an important aspect, Watched first shaky cam work in kdrama in vagabond, it's really the best camera work.


Finally :-

I would recommend a watch for Vagabond despite its open ending. This Korean Drama is indeed an action flick that delivers excellent story telling ! The plot is brilliantly developed with solid climax and high octane twists and turns. With actors like Lee Seung-Gi and Suzy, it portrays a decently constructed plot, and gripping action scenes, Vagabond offers a reliably entertaining experience to K-drama fans.

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Great action but shaky cameras

Soo here I am once again to write a review about a great production that has amazing cast, a lot of work put in the scenario and the plot and yet again I feel somewhat angry at the end for 2 reasons. Let me back up from the start - the concept with the plane crash and discovery of the twisted truth with the help of a few NIS agents was great. Not knowing who to trust, who not to... it was very thoughtful. The cast did their job perfectly from sad scenes to sexy ones to the action ones. Everyone really. The plot twist in the last few episodes was something that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately what was not enough for me to give the drama 9 or 10 starts was mostly this - you cannot tell you have one of the most expensive productions ( 25 billion Korean won from what I've read) and have shaky cameras on nearly every action scene. I swear it was like the people behind the cameras were not shooting with professional cameras but with their phones with stabilization turned off. It really messed up with me and I couldn't enjoy those well-thought of fight scenes due to the fact it was all moving around like there's ongoing earthquake. The other, smaller though, reason I was disappointed is I am finishing this drama in 2024 and it is clear that they won't have season 2 so the ending really bugs me. If they do another season after all I will probably update my rating with some minor increase but still I cannot let go of whoever thought this camera works was good enough for the amount of money they were given. And I really have to ask the question, does Geon sells himself too? Cause I understand the concept about infiltrating and revenging but to be part of the organization and that deep into cover, he must have had to kill a number of innocent people too, so is he no longer innocent and goodie? I am really confused once again about the end

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Low IQ mystery thriller drama about how useless the Korean NIS is

For those who don't wanna read it all and just wanna know: don't bother with this drama. Unless you were dropped on your head as a kid. Then, you might enjoy it. How much? It depends on how many times you were dropped.
It has a feel of a nowadays tv show. They are assuming people are watching it on a 2nd monitor, or playing on their phone so the characters must tell you what happens and why. You will get flashbacks over flashbacks, meant as "remember this scene? See? Its about that thing. See, it all makes sense". Basically, they also assume you were dropped on your head...
Everything is full of plot devices. I'm not trying to make it bigger than it is. Every fking action is: people staring at each other instead of moving, ducking, doing something, anything; low IQ special agents; plot devices, it just so happens that people do this or that, it just so happens that events take place just at the right moment, it just so happens that a new piece of the puzzle drops from the sky; and so on and so on. Basically, you must ask yourself "what it'd be the worst possible action to take?" and thats exactly what it is going to happen. Why? because any other way would mean the drama would've ended. And we can't have that now, right?

The acting is sht. Or more exactly, there is no acting going on. People yelling, people dropping exposition dialogue, people trying to look smart, people trying to look evil? Sure. Acting? No. Ok, there are a couple (maybe 5, mostly involving the kid or about him) of scenes when acting does take place, but that a drop of water into the sea, so its easier to say there isn't.
Next. The cinematography is meh. Apart from a couple of super good shots, everything else is meh. The fight-choreography is bad. In a drama where ML knows taekwondo.... He mostly spins and he pushes his opponents. Oh, opponents with guns that miss him btw... Any "action" scene is filmed as "shaky cam" scene. Also, a lot of deceiving film editing, trying to make you believe one thing, only to reveal the "truth" in a flashback. So, visually nothing is good.
Audio. Decent enough. The mixing and selection of tracks is made accordingly to the scene occurring. The OST is ok, might even say thats on theme with this drama.

And now the "good" parts. Everything is sht. As mentioned earlier, plot devices everywhere. You need something to happen so that the next scene can occur? Don't worry, it will, no matter how dumb or unbelievable it should be. The ML will deduce things he's not supposed to, based on one general thing, "I've saved your like then". How? Why? Which time? *insert flashback of a specific scene, the character had no idea of, because he wasn't there yet, but the viewers know it* Now, the ML also knows. How? Don't know, don't care. Then red herring all around. Characters talking by themselves, aloud, so other people can hear their "thoughts". Then, "every" piece of dialogue is mostly a expo dump for the viewers. "So we can't do X cause Y will happens? Ah, I see." Even though all the people involved in said discussion already know (or should know) all of that. Also, the "evil guy speech"... Geez...
What else? Character development. Yeah, right... World-building, pff. Oh, the pacing. Right, right, the pacing. Well, the pacing is... Just is. I mean the drama is supposed to be a non-stop action thing, so it is supposed to have a high pacing. But nothing important happens, also its empty calories, so basically it just makes you dizzy.

Yeah, I should stop here. I can't say more without spoilers and I don't wanna. Maybe someone really really wants to see it. Why? Don't know. I wanted to binge it and quickly be done with it, but I started a game of taking a shot for every right guessing of "the bad person escapes now, this person is evil, he'll foil their plans, this is a red herring, she'll turn around, they'll talk nonsense for 3 minutes, its a trap" etc. Needless to say, I got hammered pretty quickly. Also, the next day I had to rewatch it..... *Sigh*
Its a weak drama, with low IQ events. From the synopsis we learn that an accident happens, blah blah. Well, I was bored when watching said accident. And after, too. I know it was supposed to be sad, but after all that bad acting and dialogue I was just bored and waiting for it to end already. A feeling that was applied to every following episode.
So, it gets a rating of 3. Mostly for the audio and some tiny bits and pieces of other good/meh stuff. No rewatch value, obviously. If you're here for the actors, watch some of their other work. Luckily I've watched this drama later than when it aired, so I can say it never got a second season. Btw the 1st season ends in whats supposed to be a cliffhanger. They hoped this sht would get a new season :)))))
Have a lovely evening.

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Exciting and explosive

Wow — this is hands down, the most heart-pounding, stress-inducing drama I've watched. From the very first episode, I was super invested in the backstory and in the backgrounds of the two main leads. This was, in a sense, the perfect underdog story — the "us against the world" vibe runs throughout all the episodes in the best way. Especially in the first half, the pacing of the story was perfect; it was fast-paced and we were finding new developments all the time. In term of plot points, this is a drama that really requires you to suspend disbelief — I've seen a lot of reviews saying that it became hard to believe, but in my opinion that's just the nature of a conspiracy thriller and I found myself still able to immerse myself completely in the story. There are some political and financial aspects that I was a little less interested in, maybe a little confused by, but in the bigger picture it didn't hinder my enjoyment of the series.

Even with the insane plot, it was really interesting how this drama still managed to get its laughs and rom-com moments in. The chemistry between the leads is really great, and I love how their personalities meshed together even amidst all the tragedy.

With all that being said, however, I think this drama desperately needs a second season. The ending leaves a lot to be desired, especially since the last few episodes packed a lot of new information that wasn't explained and also changed a lot in the dynamic between our two leads. As much as I loved everything I already watched, it really leaves me craving more — and it feels almost as if I only watched three-fourth of a drama.

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