Previously, in Song Of The Bandits episode 7, we saw Yoon manage to escort Hee-shin to a safe route to help her escape MayeongJeong. Hee-shin acknowledged Yoon’s contributions to her life and shared a kiss with him. Meanwhile, the Japanese army led by Major Lee Gawang was still after them, desperately intending to kill Lee Yoon. Eon-nyeni escaped from prison and subsequently joined forces with Yoon to take out all the Japanese men who were posing a threat to their lives and their fight for freedom.
Song Of The Bandits Episode 8 picked up where Episode 7 left off. We saw Hee-shin’s departure, while Lee Yoon returned to confront the Japanese army. The Japanese men surrounded Yoon, who was fearless. He knew he had been successful in his ultimate mission to transfer the money to the Independence Army in order to bring freedom to his homeland. He returned and faced his enemies, but Lee Gawang stepped in, intending to deal with Yoon all alone. But as Gawang was about to pull his gun out to kill him, Yoon shot him in the hand. However, as one of the Japanese soldiers pointed his gun at Yoon, Gawang ordered his men to lower their guns. Surprisingly, Gawang didn’t want Yoon to be killed, or perhaps he didn’t want Yoon to be killed by the Japanese.
Spoilers Ahead
Did Yoon kill Gawang?
Hee-shin finally met the leader of the Independent Army and handed the money to him. However, Hee-shin wanted to head back to support Yoon and stand by his side during this time. She was worried about whether Yoon would be able to save himself from the Japanese. But the Independent Army assured her that the rest of the soldiers from their army would shortly be there to protect Yoon from harm. As he said, we saw some of the members of the army appear and start shooting the Japanese soldiers to death. In the midst, a severely injured Lee Gawang also realized his death was approaching, but Yoon, being a kind man with gratitude, asked Gawang to leave the area. Gawang left the area, but we aren’t quite sure if he had changed his mind about killing Yoon completely.
After successfully killing all the Japanese soldiers, the Independent Army bid goodbye to Yoon. The leader of the army came back to meet Yoon and handed him a letter written by Hee-shin. Hee-shin wrote this letter during her stay at Seon-bok’s motel, and she’d written about how she had dreamt about Joseon regaining its freedom. And she hoped her and Yoon’s relentless battle would soon make the dream come true. Yoon was content to protect the most precious thing in his life—Hee-shin, who had finally acknowledged his love and passion for her. However, Yoon didn’t let the emotions weigh on him, and keeping all the attachments aside, he decided to go back to MayeongJeong, where his group and his family were fighting the evil.
What did Nam-chun plan to do?
In MayeongJeong, when the bandits of Yoon’s group managed to defeat all the Japanese, the bandit gang led by Jang-Ki-Ryong launched an attack on them. One by one, they started beating all the men in Yoon’s group, holding them captive. Even Jang-Ki-Ryong held a meeting with the Japanese consul, asking him to hand all the prisoners to the bandits. Their main objective was to kill Yoon because he was posing a great threat to MayeongJeong. Jang-Ki-Ryong held all the captives together and inflicted inhumane torture on them to extract information on Lee Yoon’s whereabouts. But none of them opened their mouths. Eon-nyeni was observing all of this from a distance, but even though she wanted to intervene and kill Jang-Ki-Ryong, Yoon showed up to stop her right in the nick of time. He convinced her to be quiet and discreet in order to put an end to Jang’s tyranny. He also emphasized the importance of hatching a plan to set all the prisoners free. First, they decided that Jang-Ki-Ryong needed a distraction so that Yoon could release all the prisoners, but that plan would take a lot of time and might not be very effective.
Among the prisoners, Nam-chun, a middle-aged man who was a trusted friend of Choong-soo, came up with an idea that had tragic consequences. He got up and started screaming that he would disclose the information about Yoon’s location if Jang-Ki-Ryong promised to spare the lives of his daughter and the other prisoners. Nam-chun decided to lead the tyrants to a place where Yoon was hiding, but before he embarked on his journey with Jang-Ki-Ryong, he mentioned a plum tree’s sacrifice to save the peach trees. Choong-soo realized that Nam-chun was not betraying his gang; instead, he wanted to sacrifice his own life for greater good.
Nam-chun led the bandits of Jang-Ki-Ryong to a desolate place far from the township. However, just after some miles away, Jang-Ki-Ryong realized that Nam-chun was plotting something. He told his associate that if Nam-chun didn’t head in the right direction, they would shoot him to death. While Nam-chun walked a long way, Jang-Ki-Ryong and his associates followed him, leaving all the prisoners under the supervision of the prison guards. While Nam-chun kept on walking, Lee Yoon and Eon-nyeni hatched a plan and acted accordingly. They managed to kill all the guards and set the prisoners free. Choong-soo and the rest of the associates in Yoon’s group were gravely injured, requiring serious intervention.
Meanwhile, as Jang-Ki-Ryong recognized, Nam-chun was lying all along. They shot an arrow at his back and decided to head back to Mayeong Jeong. The episode didn’t explain whether Nam-chun succumbed to the injury or whether Lee Yoon would come to rescue him. In the final episode of Song of the Bandits, the mystery will be resolved, and we’ll get to know more about Lee Gawang’s motivation regarding killing Lee Yoon. Furthermore, it’s also anticipated that Yoon would be able to put an end to Jang-Ki-Ryong’s tyranny and set his homeland free from any kind of force.
