Warrior Baek Dong-soo

Koreans make surprisingly good TV shows. If it wasn't for Drama fever and Netflix,, nobody in the US would ever know.

For fans of Martial arts movies and ninja stuff, there are few options that come anywhere close to being as good as this show. It's a TV show, not a movie but it kinda watches like one long movie of 29 episodes of 1 hour each. The format gives the title something that is missing in almost all Ninja Movies. Ninja films are often criticized for being a little too light on story lines in favor of packing them full of action.

Warrior Baek Dong Su takes the time to develop the characters and a very intricate but fascinating plot. Part of it is loosely based on a historical figure of the same name. The rest is made up to make it, well, good. It is still packed with action from the first episode, all the way through to an amazing finally.

At a high level, 2 boys grow up together. One becomes the best swordsman in Korea (which makes them the best in the universe according to Koreans). The other, is secretly part of an organization of assassins called the black Ninjas. He grows up to become the best assassin in Korea (also universe). They kinda fall out when Baek Dong Su finds out about his friends job.

The assassin goes on to get involved in a plot to overthrow the king while the main guy (Baek Dong Su), leads the effort to stop them.

There are tons of great characters. Only Koreans have names like "God of Swordsmanship" and address each other like that. If you like Ninjas, you will love this. The rest of you will probably dismiss this show as weird foreign nonsense which is a shame. If you can get past that part, you will probably enjoy it too.