A female assassin's past catches up with her.
Review by
Ren Zelen
Directed by: Byung-gil Jung
Starring: Ok-bin Kim, Ha-kyun Shin, Jun Sung, Seo-hyeong Kim,
Eun-ji Jo, Ye-Ji Min
Like so many recent Korean action flicks, Byung-gil Jung’s
The Villainess starts off with a humdinger of an action
sequence. One is barely settled in one’s seat before being immediately
thrust into the midst of a violent melee with arterial blood spraying in
all directions. The film’s intricately choreographed opening sequence offers nearly 10
minutes of nonstop carnage from a subjective POV, as in a video game, with
the audience taking the perspective of the mysterious assailant -
shooting, kicking and stabbing their way through a corridor of
bloodthirsty gangsters, OldBoy style.
Having finally hacked their way to the room at the other end, the panting
antagonist is now faced with the kingpin and his cronies, gearing up for
another onslaught. When the intruder is thrust headlong into a mirror by
one of the gang, we finally see that shockingly, it is a young girl – a
black-leather-clad-killing-machine, certainly, but also a mere slip of a
thing. This revelation finally explains the look of comic incomprehension
on the faces of some of the victims that lie bleeding in her wake.
Ok-bin Kim plays Sook-hee, a girl trained to be a deadly assassin
since childhood - this opening bloodbath is her revenge on the thugs who
murdered someone she loved. During this change of perspective to the
objective, the camera work really begins to get crazy (at one point it
seems like the camera is on a swing) setting the tone for the rest of the
insanely inventive action sequences The Villainess
inflicts upon us.
Barely escaping alive from the murderous mayhem, Sook-hee is nabbed by
South Korea’s Intelligence Agency, which recruits her as a sleeper agent.
She accepts the chance to start a new life with a promise from her
handler, Chief Kwon (Seo-hyeong Kim), of complete freedom after 10
years of service.
Western audiences will see analogies with Hanna (2011),
Kill Bill (2003) and the French film
La Femme Nikita (1990), as like that female assassin,
Sook-hee can gain her freedom only by killing government
targets. Unlike Nikita however, Sook-hee is pregnant with her dead husband’s baby.
He (Ha-kyun Shin) was killed on their honeymoon, but the Agency
allows Sook-hee to have her baby and raise her daughter to toddlerhood
during her training, giving them a means to exert extra incentive on their
operative.
After her training is complete, Sook-hee goes out into the world taking
on a new identity as Chae Yeon-soo, a 27-year-old theatre actress and
single mother. Hyun-soo (Jun Sung), an angel-faced charmer in the
apartment next door, takes a romantic interest in her. There is certainly
a mutual attraction, but, for someone whose previous existence has
revolved around being an efficient killer, slipping seamlessly into a
normal life is not an easy transition for Sook-hee.
What complicates matters is that her new beau has actually been primed
and planted by the Agency to keep tabs on her, and soon there are also
indications that her erstwhile beloved spouse may not be entirely
dead.
Ok-bin Kim gives a marvellously committed performance as Sook-hee,
expressing a subtle eroticism and, despite her femininity, striking
features and petite frame, exuding a fierce energy in her combat
scenes.
Stunt coordinator Kwon Gui-duck and cinematographer
Park Jung-hun present some outstanding vehicle chase scenes. Kwon
stages an astonishing sword fight on speeding motorbikes at night in a
tunnel, and a jaw-dropping climactic pursuit that starts with an alley
fight, continues in a car accident, builds to car chase choreography and
acrobatics as good as anything in
Baby Driver
and ends on top of a speeding bus.
It’s impossible to tell where the live action ends and the crazy drone
cameras and CGI trickery begins. Kim’s action sequences come across in
unbelievably long-takes, but she is so fierce in the lead role that she
needs little help to hold our attention.
The fun is in the details, as when sniper Sook-hee picks off the
obstacles around her target so that they crumple and give her a cleaner
shot. Or when moments before her wedding ceremony, Sook-hee, in her
wedding dress, is called upon to enter the venue’s toilet, fish out a
sniper rifle and start shooting - and when she shoots someone’s sunglasses
off from half a mile away, she gets the shock of her life.
Western audiences will see references to several Western films (although
Byung-gil Jung denies any influences) while seasoned Asian film fans will
recognise Nikkatsu’s ’70s female exploitation films and Hong Kong’s long
history of martial arts heroines, (Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung, Brigitte
Lin, Shu Qi, Maggie Q).
Nonetheless, The Villainess succeeds in being hugely
exciting, offering delirious action choreography, breakneck pacing and
even a dramatic, (if over-fussy) narrative thread. What is new about
The Villainess is that it marries its revenge scenario to a
melodrama of maternal suffering. She is a lover, a mother, a betrayed
woman and an angel of vengeance, allowing Sook-hee to be vulnerable,
tragic and ruthless.
In the West, critics have generally admired the other recent, female-led,
action flick,
Atomic Blonde. I too enjoyed Charlize Theron’s frosty secret agent being sent into a
gritty '80s Berlin to retrieve information devastating to Western
intelligence. Atomic Blonde is a triumph of style thanks to
the outrageously beautiful, steely Theron, but she offered us a different
kind of female protagonist - a cold, focussed, female survivor, with a
hollowness at heart.
The Villainess instead resembles
Atomic Blonde director David Leitch’s other creation,
John Wick. That film worked partly because Keanu Reeves’ Wick was allowed to show
his heartbreak and mourning as he pursued his vengeance.
The Villainess has a similar emotional core.
The problem with The Villainess is a muddy narrative - there
are plot machinations, layers of betrayal and a jumbled chronology
containing some disorienting flashbacks which all contribute to a bit of a
muddle. However, the lack of a clear and coherent narrative is nearly offset
by a staggering performance by Ok-bin Kim in a film which contains the kind
of grim melodrama, cartoonish violence, and mayhem and destruction that
Asian cinema revels in, and that makes most viewers gasp, laugh and weep,
all at the same time.
The Villainess is on Shudder UK
now.