[8][9] A commercial and critical success, it is regarded as the origin point of the bushranging drama, a genre that dominated the early years of Australian film production.

As of 2020, approximately 17 minutes of the film are known to have survived, which, together with stills and other fragments, have undergone restoration for theatrical and home video releases.

The similar (but different) photos suggest that either the film was being added to for its re-release, or an entirely new version was made by Johnson and Gibson, as the poster proclaims.

This is now thought to be from a different film altogether, perhaps a cheap imitation of The Story of the Kelly Gang made by a theatrical company, keen to cash in on the success of the original, or an earlier bushranger short.

The film was made during an era when plays about bushrangers were extremely popular, and there were, by one estimate, six contemporaneous theatre companies giving performances of the Kelly gang story.

[6] Historian Ian Jones suggests bushranger stories still had an "indefinable appeal" for Australians in the early 20th century.

"[22] Lincoln also claimed that "the principal characters were played by the promoters and their relatives, who certainly made no pretensions to any great histrionic talent.

[17] Much of the film was shot at Charterisville, a property leased by Lizzie Tait's family as a dairy farm and artists' colony near Heidelberg, now a suburb of Melbourne.

According to Viola Tait, Sir Rupert Clarke loaned the suit of Kelly armour his family then owned for use in the film.

The Tait family owned the Melbourne Athenaeum Hall and part of their concert program often included short films.

"[4] For example, in later years, William Gibson claimed that while touring through New Zealand showing the bio-pic Living London, he noticed the large audiences attracted to Charles McMahon's stage play The Kelly Gang.

Film historian Eric Reade claimed the Taits themselves owned the stage rights to a Kelly play,[27] while actors Sam Crewes and John Forde later also claimed to have thought of the idea of a making a film of the Kelly Gang's exploits, inspired by the success of stage plays.

Scenes depicting the gang's chivalrous conduct towards women received criticism, with The Bulletin stating that such a portrayal "justifies all Ned Kelly’s viciousness and villainies".

[35] In November 2006, the National Film and Sound Archive released a new digital restoration which incorporated the new material and recreated some scenes based on existing still photographs.

According to The Australian, Thornton, an Aboriginal, "has little time" for depictions of Ned Kelly as a larrikin folk hero and Irish victim of British colonisation.