The Villainess Review

Director: Jeong Byeong-gil

Stars: Kim Ok-bin, Shin Ha-kyun, Sung Joon, Kim Seo-hyung, Jo Eun-ji, Lee Seung-joo and Son Min-ji

The Korean smash hit comes to Arrow Films and its ride on the wave of motorcycle knife wielding gangsters, but will this Korean bloodshed extravaganza end up being the hero or the villain.

arrowVillainessSook-Hee ( Kim Ok-bin) Is thrown into a world of vengeance as its established early on that shes out for vengeance, with her fathers killer being the catalyst for her actions.  Sook-Hee is recruited as a child to become an assassin and later to become a trained killer where she is given a normal life and job while being given assignments that she has to undertake with the contract being after 10 years she will be given her freedom.  Sook-Hee has taken to the life and is making a life outside of her contract killing until she is given a target that brings her past flooding back and when she fails to take the target out things start to escalate not only for her but for the lives around her.

The opening scene sets up the film with its first person jacked up action packed bloodfest with guns for show and thenvillainessfight knifes for a pro it descends into a bloody battle that has nods to 'Oldboy' in its corridor sequence and 'Hardcore Henry' go pro style action.  Its a breathtaking introduction to the title character Sook-Hee played brilliantly by Kim Ok-Bin, from 'The Unfair' and 'thirst' fame who just oozes and embraces the characters thirst for vengeance.  It's stylish in its ultimate switch from first to 3rd person view when Sook-Hee's head is smashed off a mirror and it instantly switches to the 3rd person view. Very clever.

thevillainesscarchaseThe film never lets up on the action and with nods to the genre and 'Nikita' it plunges our heroine into a web of deceit and ultimately a showdown with her fathers killer. The scene with a bunch of  sword welding gangsters out to take down our heroine is just crazy, but in a good way, that keeps a pace of the film.   The finale again has the action style council all of it with an absolute bonkers stunt for car to bus to a frantic knife and axe fight.

This truly is an action film of the highest order, I cant fault it story telling or character driven story that is what every vengeance film should be bloody and brilliant.

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