Lee Yoon is one of the leading protagonists of Netflix’s Kdrama Western, Song of the Bandits. The character is played by Kim Nam-gil.
Lee Yoon was an indentured slave of Lee Gwang-Il, who after Yoon’s emancipation, convinces him to become a Japanese soldier just as he is.
Lee Yoon works under him for the Japanese Imperial Army and even though the state of his fellow countrymen troubles him, he continues to serve, until he witnesses firsthand the Imperialists’ nightmarish genocidal undertakings.
Haunted by past
Lee Yoon is plagued by the acts he committed in the past. Working for the Japanese Imperial Army, and under Lee Gwang-Il, he embarked on many missions as their puppet.
He was a unit leader who was responsible for tracking down suspected Militia leaders and reporting their location to the superiors. In Gurye about six years before the events that the first show opens to, a tragic scene changes his life.
He was supposed to track down the leader of the Righteous Army, Choi Choong-Soo, aka the Invincible General. When he was away from his base, Choong-Soo’s village was ravaged by the Imperial Army as part of their Militia Round-up campaign.
The location of the village was known thanks to Lee Yoon. While death eluded Choong-Soo, his family of women and even infant children were all killed. Lee Yoon witnessed these horrors and even as he tried to stop them from unfolding, he couldn’t.
A quest for penance
Years after that hellscape that Lee Yoon deemed himself wholly responsible for, he continued serving Gwang-Il and the Japanese Army until the time ran out and he had done his share of service.
He defies his former master quits the army, and heads off to Manchuria to seek Choi Choong-Soo. He does find him in a hidden village called Myeongjeong.
Choi Choong-Soo’s wounds open up once again and he wishes to kill him but a bandit gang’s attack distracts him while causing loss of property and life in his community. Lee Yoon saves one of their girls from the bandit while killing all of his gang.
Choong-Soo can’t let Lee Yoon simply die for all that he did and let him live with the guilt. However, when he shows that he is capable and willing to save his countrymen, Choong-Soo warms up to him.
That and sharing a similar weight of guilt on their conscience. Lee Yoon’s profession contributed to many atrocities while Choong-Soo’s past before the Righteous Army also involved the deaths of innocents.
A leader reborn
Lee Yoon decides to keep Gando safe from the Japanese Army and to offer a great resistance against them, he doesn’t go the Independence Army route but the way of the banditry.
With a number of other anti-Japanese men, he created a ragtag team of bandits who fought against Japanese Imperialism, with a great degree of success too.
Choi Choong-Soo also joins in and lends great support, as Lee Yoon later shifts his focus on robbing the Gando railway construction funds to strengthen his group of bandits and their anti-imperialist efforts.
