This review may contain spoilers
Trust No One
Is there anything project that Lee Seung-gi decides to do that is bound to fail? The man is seriously talented and keeps going from strength to strength. Each new series gets darker than the last! Vagabond offers something new to the Kdrama genre. You can see it has a massive budget behind it through the gorgeous cinematography, international locations & visual effects which are all very impressive. The action is literally non-stop! We have the winning combination of Lee Seung-gi & Bae Suzy, previously seen to great effect in Gu Family Book. They work really well together. I would have loved to have seen more romance but I guess that will come with the sequel (whenever that maybe)! What's strange is that at the beginning he is portrayed as a loser stuntman & she is seen as a femme fatale spy but then their roles switch and he's suddenly an amazing stuntman that is mistaken for a spy owing to his amazing abilities and she has zero skills as a spy who is just doing the job to support her family...no doubt to reinforce gender stereotypes. Usually in Kdramas you will find at least one token American who acts badly...but in this it's slightly better...we have Jessica who speaks English quite well, the Moroccan police inspector who was quite good as well as the other Moroccan cast members only Michael was a bit off. Every time I see Hwang Bo-ra I'm instantly reminded of Joan Cusack, I think she's a great supporting actress and gives great comic relief. Another great supporting actor is Shin Sung-rok, who I thought could have been better utilised, as he is very talented but his part did get better as it went on. What struck me about the story was how brutal it was at the start, I mean...spoiler alert....a young child is killed and this is what the whole story hinges on. All of Lee Seung-gi actions are out of love for his nephew, which really does give new meaning to 'the power of love', he becomes the everyman underdog fighting corruption at every turn. The ending...if you can call it that, is left open for a sequel, which was very risky as there was no resolution, now what with the Covid delay and conflicting actors schedules I don't see it happening any time soon, which is a real shame particularly because it is in the Action genre, you can't wait too long as the actors won't be able to do the scenes anymore...look at Indy 4!!! :)
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