Bloodhounds is Netflix’s latest Korean mini-series, joining the successful list including All Of Us Are Dead, Move To Heaven, and more shows, all of which are ten or fewer episodes long and perfect for a weekend binge. Read our full review here if you haven’t seen the show yet! Based on a webtoon of the same name that takes place in the time of COVID-19, Bloodhounds shows us another dark side of a pandemic while simultaneously making it entertaining through action and humor!
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In ‘Bloodhounds’?
Bloodhounds follows Gun-Woo, who lives with his single mother. She owns a cafe, and Gun-Woo is a successful rookie boxer. After winning the rookie championship, Gun-Woo befriends his opponent, Woo-Jin, and immediately they become thick as thieves. Gun-Woo is excited to have won the award and gives his mother some money to pay back part of her loans. Because of COVID, people don’t eat out, so her cafe isn’t doing very well. Gun-Woo has no problem giving his mother the money, though, but he has to wait for the pandemic to end because the next championship has been postponed. One day a man comes over to the cafe and tells Gun-Woo’s mother that they will pay back the loan for her if she signs a contract with them. The benefit is that they have a 5% interest rate in comparison to the bank’s 7%. Gun-Woo’s gullible mother ends up signing the paper but doesn’t realize that there’s a clause that says she needs to pay a certain amount back within 24 hours. Gun-Woo isn’t home when all this goes down, and when he returns, the man has brought some goons over to cause mayhem in the cafe. Gun-Woo fights them all using his boxer fists to save his mother, but one of the men, the boss’s right-hand man, is too strong for Gun-Woo, and he ends up on the floor. The boss, Myeong-Gil, is impressed by Gun-Woo’s strength and asks him to work for him, but Gun-Woo spits on him in return, so Myeong-Gil carves a scar on his face, matching one similar to his, to make sure Gun-Woo knows who he’s up against.
Gun-Woo immediately rushes to Woo-Jin for help, and Woo-Jin takes him to a senior from the army. The senior tells them that they should talk to a man named Mr. Choi, who has some work for them. Mr. Choi is looking for bodyguards for his adoptive granddaughter, Hyeon-Ju, who often runs into trouble. Mr. Choi had purchased an orphanage just so that he could be close to Hyeon-Ju, who was the daughter of one of his men. The man had killed himself because he was in debt to loan sharks and was terrorized by his goons. Mr. Choi himself used to be a loan shark, but his main goal was to help people after making a lot of money. He shut down his firm when he made enough and decided he was done terrorizing people for money. Instead, he began loaning money to the poor who needed it for medical treatments with no interest. One of these people ran away with the money, and Hyeon-Ju ended up following him, which led her to Smile Capital. Hyeon-Ju is apprehensive about having bodyguards because she is sure she can take care of herself. Although Mr. Choi likes Gun-Woo and Woo-Jin immediately, it’s all about Hyeon-Ju’s approval, so they need to convince her to have them on board. Gun-Woo convinces her by showing her the scar given to him by Myeong-Gil. He proves to her that they believe in her cause as much as she does, and she agrees to have them on board. Hyeon-Ju and the boys plan on taking down Smile Capital.
How Do President Choi And Myeong-Gil Know Each Other?
When Mr. Choi was a loan shark himself, he had a bunch of men working for him. When he suddenly decided to quit the business, he paid them all really well and shut the shop, but one of his employee, Myeong-Gil, who was also a convict, couldn’t deal with that and knew how much money he had. Myeong-Gil decided to steal all of Mr. Choi’s money. During the endeavor, the security guard called Mr. Choi to tell him someone had broken in. Mr. Choi was strong and capable of taking Myeong-Gil down, but he didn’t know that Myeong-Gil had brought a fellow ex-prisoner along. Myeong-Gil had made a friend in prison named In-Beom, who had become like a brother to him. Mr. Choi was no match for Im Beom. Im Beom was the reason Mr. Choi became crippled, as he stabbed him and threw him out of the window. It was Mr. Oh who saved Mr. Choi from dying. Myeong-Gil learned all his tricks from Mr. Choi and finally ended up stabbing him in the back. With all the money he stole from Mr. Choi, Myeong-Gil set up Smile Capital, and then he began scamming people after COVID. Myeong-Gil also took videos of the rich to exploit them and blackmail them into allowing him to invest in their companies, sign contracts with them, etc., to make his business look legitimate. He stores all the videos on a special hard disk, and until the kids are able to get that from him, they can’t beat him.
After some time together, Mr. Choi, Hyeon-Ju, and the boys become like family. When Mr. Choi finds out that it’s Myeong-Gil the kids are after, he decides that he needs to help, but he knows that this will end only if one of them dies. Mr. Choi then calls on his close associates, Yang-Jung and Du-Yeong, who are strong fighters, to help the kids win against Myeong-Gil. At first, things seem to go great, but Myeong-Gil gets a whiff of their plan and kills Yang-Jung, Du-Yeong, and Mr. Choi, leaving the kids to fend for themselves. Woo-Jin almost dies in the process of trying to save Mr. Choi, but Gun-Woo is able to save him. Unfortunately, Hyeon-Ju is unable to handle the loss of her grandfather and leaves the boys. Mr. Oh takes care of the boys, and they work hard to beat Myeong-Gil.
‘Bloodhounds’ Ending Explained: Is Myeong-Gil Arrested In The End?
After getting stronger, the boys chalk out a plan to get to the hard disk and nip the problem in the bud. Woo-Jin and Gun-Woo realize they need one of the people Myeong-Gil is blackmailing to be on their side. They find the heir of the Lil group, Hong Min-Beom, being tortured by Myeong-Gil, so they join forces with him and his cousin, who is a police officer. They make an elaborate plan to destroy the hard disk by hacking into Myeong-Gil’s phone when he comes over to sign a contract with Mr. Hong. The plan works, and they destroy the hard disk, but Myeong-Gil has another backup of the videos and sends it to Mr. Hong again. Myeong-Gil has an insider in the police station, and Mr. Hong’s cousin has been telling him details of his plans, so Myeong-Gil knows everything in real time. He then kidnaps Mr. Oh so he can kill Gun-Woo and Woo-Jin once and for all. Gun-Woo and Woo-Jin beat up In-Beom and capture him for answers, but instead of giving them information, he bites off his tongue and almost dies. Gun-Woo doesn’t allow him to die because if he does, they’re no different from Myeong-Gil, but they still have no way of beating Myeong-Gil. With the help of Mr. Oh’s granddaughter, Gun-Woo and Woo-Jin are able to save Mr. Oh. Finally, one of Myeong-Gil’s men tells Gun-Woo and Woo-Jin what his next plan is. The money he stole from Mr. Choi after killing him was enough to take him to another country. He’s going to Vietnam, where everything is already set up for him. The only way Gun-Woo and Woo-Jin can get the money back is by getting on the ship that he’s going to take to Vietnam.
Gun-Woo and Woo-Jin fight Myeong-Gil and In-Beom on the ship to exact their revenge. Their hard work pays off, and they’re able to defeat Myeong-Gil and get him arrested once and for all. Gun-Woo tells Myeong-Gil that he will kill him if Myeong-Gil ever shows his face again. Mr. Hong asks the boys what they plan to do with the gold they’ve retrieved. Gun-Woo wishes to continue Mr. Choi’s goodwill, and Mr. Hong loves the idea; he also suggests setting up a hospital, along with looking after the poor and helping them. He thinks it will help his company, too, so he’s totally on board with the plan. Mr. Hong gives two bars each to Gun-Woo and Woo-Jin, who can both live their lives comfortably and box all they want after all this. Mr. Choi’s dream for Gun-Woo was to create a gym and a cafe for him, so it’s possible Gun-Woo will use his bars to do the same. We’d hope they get in touch with Hyeon-Ju again and bring her back home so they can all be a big, happy family again. At the end of the show, the boys return to Mr. Choi’s orphanage and embrace Gun-Woo’s mom. She’s grateful everything is done and went well. Even though the boys became bloodhounds, they never engaged in any criminal activity except beating up goons in self-defense. They can definitely go back to their ultimate goal of becoming boxing champions.
In all their time with Mr. Choi and bringing down Myeong-Gil, the boys made a lot of connections, including those in the police department and now the hospital business, thanks to Mr. Hong’s usage of Mr. Choi’s money. They can fight anything and anybody as a team. Gun-Woo proved that if you’re a good person, anything is possible, and that’s the big moral of this simple story.
