Kim Ok-bin (WellGo USA)
Blood sprayed at regular intervals in director Jung Byung-gil’s crime drama The Villainess, and judged by its opening and closing sequences alone, it would be one of the year’s best action movies. But what happens in the nearly two hours between those impressive and gore-splattered set pieces is less satisfying.
The movie drops us in the middle of a dizzying bloodbath (and a seemingly uninterrupted shot) as we see the point of view of a lone killer going on a rampage through an increasingly populated gauntlet of enemies. We quickly learn from heavy sighs of adrenaline and pain that we are seeing through the eyes of Sook-hee (Kim Ok-bin of Thirst), and as the camera reveals her compact but deadly frame, we are thrown along for a one-woman death march with a seemingly invincible assassin, pummeled but never broken by her opponents.
That opening sequence crams nearly all the mayhem of the central 10-minute sequence of Atomic Blonde with a few reels worth of blood count from The Raid: Redemption into about seven minutes.
But after that, the movie needs to come up with a plot, and it’s a muddled one that’s told in fragmented, time-shifting pieces. We see Sook-hee’s vengeance driven by the bloody murder of her father, which she witnessed as a young girl; and, later, by the murder of her husband, right after their honeymoon.
Her husband (Park Chan-wook favorite Shin Ha-kyun) trained her in efficient means of killing (or perhaps those most likely to cause sudden projectile bleeding), and her skills draw interest from an agency that plans to use her as an unstoppable assassin—but not before it signs her up for its resident theater program. (This is when the movie morphs briefly into The Neon Demon).
From Kim Ki-duk to Park Chan-wook, Korean cinema has become a fertile ground for revenge dramas that suggest Grand Guignol on steroids, but Villainess takes a second-act detour into a very different national specialty: K-drama, the slick melodramatic serials that hew to formulaic plot points of meeting cute and falling in love.
Where a K-drama will inevitably feature a scene where its male lead rescued its female lead from certain death, things don’t turn out quite the same way here. Armed with a face-lift and a new identity, Sook-hee reluctantly finds romance, albeit with a guy (K-drama regular Sung Jun) who’s an agency plant. And after all that, the love story isn’t as complicated as Sook-hee’s history as a killer.
This is a stylish but messy film, and not just due to the gallons of red corn syrup. The fractured timeline keeps the potentially heart-tugging plot point of Sook-hee’s endangered child from packing its full emotional punch.
But all is forgiven by the film’s final sequence, an extended piece of meticulously choreographed and dazzling stunt work that tops the film’s impressive opening. It’s too bad the heart of this movie is so oddly plotted; more simplified editing could have constructed a more compelling drama for the well-crafted thrills that bookend the film Villainess is an ambitious whirlwind that just misses its target, but it’s a helluva ride.
The Villainess
Directed by Jung Byung-gil
Written by Jung Byeong-sik and Jung Byung-gil
With Kim Ok-bin, Shin Ha-kyun, Sung Jun
Rated R. Contains strong language and soooo much blood.
129 minutes
Opens today at ArcLight Bethesda
