The Villainess (2017) (Blu-ray Review)
DIRECTED BY: Jung Byung-gil
STARRING: Kim Ok-bin, Shin Ha-kyun, Sung Jun
RATED: UR/Region: O/1:85/1080P/NUMBER OF DISCS 1 (BDr)
AVAILABLE FROM Well Go USA
Some action movies ease you into the violence.
The Villainess looks at that idea, laughs, and immediately drives a motorcycle through a window while stabbing somebody in the face.
Directed by Jung Byung-gil, this 2017 South Korean action thriller stars Kim Ok-vin as Sook-hee, a woman who was trained from childhood to be a killing machine before being recruited by South Korea’s intelligence agency and promised a chance at a normal life. Because apparently the best way to help someone transition into a quiet civilian existence is to give them a government job involving even more murder.
And holy shit, does this movie know how to make an entrance.
The opening sequence alone is basically the filmmakers kicking down the door and announcing, “Hello, we’re going to be doing some ridiculous shit with a camera.”
Jung uses long takes, aggressive camera movement, first-person perspectives, and some absolutely bonkers choreography to throw you directly into Sook-hee’s point of view. The action is bloody, frantic, and ridiculously stylish, and Kim Ok-vin looks like she could dismantle an entire room before most people have finished deciding which hand to hold their coffee in. Critics have particularly praised the film’s kinetic set pieces and inventive camerawork.
This is one of those movies where you occasionally stop paying attention to the plot because you’re too busy wondering:
“How the hell did they film THAT?”
And that’s not necessarily a complaint.
The story itself is a little more complicated than it needs to be. There are flashbacks, betrayals, secret identities, government agencies, assassins, revenge, romance, childhood trauma, and enough twists to make you wonder if the screenplay was assembled by somebody throwing index cards down a staircase.
But underneath all of that is a pretty straightforward revenge story.
Sook-hee wants a normal life.
People from her past aren’t interested in letting her have one.
Sook-hee responds to this information by murdering approximately everyone who makes the mistake of standing in her way.
Problem solved.
Well… sort of.
The movie definitely owes something to the female-assassin movies that came before it, and Jung has acknowledged La Femme Nikita as an inspiration. You can also feel some Kill Bill, Atomic Blonde, and classic Hong Kong action influences floating around in there.
But The Villainess has enough personality of its own that it never feels like a simple copy.
And the action is the big reason why.
There’s a hallway fight.
There are motorcycles.
There are knives.
There are guns.
There are swords.
There are people getting launched through things.
At one point, the movie basically decides that a motorcycle is now a perfectly acceptable platform for sword fighting.
Because apparently motorcycles weren’t dangerous enough already.
The action scenes are so elaborate that you can almost forgive the movie when the plot starts tying itself into a knot. Almost.
Kim Ok-vin is also fantastic in the lead. She manages to sell Sook-hee as both an absolutely terrifying killing machine and someone who genuinely wants a normal life. That contrast gives the character more weight than you might expect from a movie whose primary solution to interpersonal conflict is apparently “stab everybody.”
And yes, there’s plenty of blood.
Lots of blood.
This movie does not believe in politely suggesting that somebody has been stabbed.
It believes in making sure the walls are aware of the situation.
The biggest issue for me is that the movie can occasionally become a little too tangled in its own melodrama. The story keeps revealing another secret, then another secret behind that secret, and eventually you’re sitting there thinking, “Can we get back to the part where Kim Ok-vin kills 14 guys with a motorcycle?”
Fortunately, the movie usually listens.
That’s why The Villainess works so well as a piece of pure action entertainment. Even when the story gets soap-operatic, the filmmaking keeps things moving. The movie had its world premiere at Cannes in 2017 and received a four-minute standing ovation, which seems appropriate because after some of these action sequences, I’m pretty sure your only other option is to stand up and applaud out of sheer confusion about how anybody survived filming them.
The Villainess is stylish, bloody, ridiculously energetic, and occasionally completely fucking insane.
And I mean that as a compliment.
It’s not always interested in making things easy for the audience, but when it gets going, it’s one hell of a ride. If you like your action movies with elaborate choreography, inventive camera work, revenge, assassins, and enough violence to make a first-aid kit file for unemployment, this thing delivers.
Basically, The Villainess is what happens when somebody asks:
“What if we made a female assassin movie, but gave the cameraman three Red Bulls and told him he wasn’t allowed to stand still?”
And honestly?
I’m glad they did.
