Watching this South Korean tribute to La Femme Nikita, I wondered how it might play in other cultures. La Femme Nikita is, of course, a tale of a violent junkie the government turns into a trained assassin. The American version took away her rough edges and played up the wholesome beauty. South Korea took a similar character and gave her pointy weapons and bloodthirsty vengeance. I’m trying to imagine now a Chinese version where she becomes an ultranationalist, a Canadian version in which it’s the same film but entirely in snow, or the Indian version in which she sings a song about being an assassin, falls in love with the mark and never kills again.
This film starts out as Doom – a first person viewpoint as the shooter-then-stabber takes out an entire building full of druglord tools. It’s violent, and bloody. Think “Crazy 88 scene” from Kill Bill. Sook-hee (Ok-bin Kim) is subsequently arrested and sent up to a training school for assassins. I suppose that it’s technically a trade school, but the place is filled with all sorts of academic-related distractions; Sook-hee chooses the drama club, which I suppose is a bit of a mismatch – genuine stage actors turned assassins went out with John Wilkes Booth, right?
Oh, this is a flashback film, is it? We started with one; here’s a look at teen Sook-he. And now child Sook-he. Do you remember the cartoon segment of Kill Bill in which we see the origin story of O-ren Ishii? Imagine turning that segment into a feature-length film and The Villainess is very close to what you’ll get. I have several general problems with films that skip time over and over, the main concerns being – how do you know when something is “live?” And why didn’t you just tell us that in the order that it happened? We’ll make the connection; we promise.
Violent as Sook-he is, all she wanted was revenge for her father’s murder. Hence, she’s all honey badger about the whole assassin game. Oh, but Sook-he, you’re pregnant and if you care about your future child, you’ll play our game. And just in case you don’t, stick that agent Joong-sang (Ha-kyun Shin), she’ll never know he’s really one of ours – except for the part where she makes him inside of ten minutes.
The Villainess obviously reminded me of Kill Bill and La Femme Nikita, but it struck me more as a feminine version of Oldboy, another South Korean film where the ultraviolence masks a very complicated plot that will take several reels to unravel. The Villainess isn’t quite as satisfying or violent or depressing or mind-blowing as Oldboy, but it’s ballpark. You know how for every dollar a man makes, a woman makes 77 cents? Think of The Villainess as Oldboy’s 77 cents.
The Villainess, a titular anoint
Favors the knife penetrating a joint
If you mess with her brain
I cannot quite explain
But, hey, you’ll get the point
Not Rated but very bloody, 124 Minutes
Director: Byung-gil Jung
Writer: Byeong-sik Jung, Byung-gil Jung
Genre: La Femme Sook-he (-ta)
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Fans of violence
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Fans of justice
