|
|||||||||||||||
The first book introduced Yongbi and his faithful beer drinking horse Bi-Yong as they were transporting their captive, the notorious criminal leader Goo-Hwi to Hobook castle. Along the way, the group comes across a young boy named Yul, who offers Yongbi a golden amulet as payment for taking him along to the castle. After arriving at the castle and receiving his bounty for Goo-Hwi, Yongbi finds out that the leader of the castle and Yul’s father-figure Besoong Hwang is not a good guy, and he’s after the amulet. Yongbi and Bi-Yong escape with the amulet, but quickly become captured by another group, the Red Blood Gang. This group wants revenge on Yongbi for financial damage that he wreaked upon them in the past. He escaped once again and began heading to Mount Gwehung. Meanwhile, Goo-Hwi escapes his bondage and runs into Yul. The two escaped the castle together.
This book continues where book one left off. Yongbi runs into three seemingly innocent travelers who are kind and stop to help him out. But when they discover that Yongbi has the amulet, they reveal there true identities as powerful warriors. They proceed to attack Yongbi three on one. Goo-Hwi and Yul have also been attacked. Although he wouldn’t like to admit it Goo-Hwo has a soft spot for kids, and he is determined to protect Yul. After defeating the enemies, the pair head to Goo-Hwi’s criminal organization’s headquarters.
This book continues the strange storylines started in the beginning, but the pace has changed quite a bit. The first book was slower paced, laying out all the details of the complicated plot. The story in this book is more action-packed. Almost the whole story revolves around crude humor or fighting sequences. The plot was moved very slowly thanks to this phenomenon, which is kind of a good thing, because that means there will be more and more books needed to tell the story.
What it comes down to is that this is the story of two powerful men with disreputable pasts who become intertwined in a larger battle of evil dominance through organizations. Yongbi and Goo-Hwi each chose a path that will inevitably bring them up against the forces of Besoong Hwang. Perhaps they will end up becoming allies in opposition of these forces, or maybe they will continue to be rivals with similar goals and purposes.
The art of the series is really growing on me. Its use of over-exaggeration for humor and to show pain seems increasingly appropriate. There is also a real dark edge to the art which shows the true power of these fairly ridiculous characters. It’s probably worth mentioning that the artist seems to have a fixation on mouths as we often see close-up shots of mouths and teeth throughout the book.
This book has really made my liking of this series solidly grounded. It’s a humorous action story without any true “good” guys. It’s definitely worth checking out; particularly if you’re a fan of low-brow humor or intense fighting scenes with over the top characters. I still am claiming, though, that Goo-Hwi is a much more intriguing and fun character than the main character Yongbi.
-brant-
|
|||||||||||||||
