Jung Byung-gil’s The Villainess opens
with a sprawling first-person action sequence. Filmed to look like one
continuous take, it involves guns, knives, hatchets, swords, dudes kicked
through windows, and showers of blood. It’s brutal, relentless, and sets the
tone for the action-heavy revenge narrative that follows, thematically as well
as aesthetically.
The Villainess shares obvious DNA strands
with earlier South Korean crime thrillers epitomized by filmmakers like Park Chan-wook, Kim Jee-woon, Bong Joon-ho, and others. It has a spiraling plot,
labyrinthine and coiled to the brink of coherence; a grim, gritty, down and
dirty vibe; and a penchant for graphic (some may say gratuitous, though not me)
violence.
A twisted riff on La Femme Nikita,
filtered through a Kill Bill lens, after a woman, Sook-hee
(Kim Ok-bin, Thirst), goes on the aforementioned kill-crazy
rampage, she’s recruited—there should quotation marks around that word—into a
covert governmental cadre of assassins, teased with the dangling, and likely
bogus, carrot of freedom at the end of the tunnel.
And that’s just the start. From there, Jung and co-writer
Jung Byeong-sik stack layer on top of layer. Flashbacks take us to earlier stages
of Sook-hee’s life, it features multiple romantic angles, she briefly has
nemesis, and a parallel story unfolds exposing past wounds. Some of the
plotting and reveals sing and shock, though others plod and stumble. Betrayals
and shifting allegiances pile so high the whole thing teeters precariously like
a near-the-end game of Jenga. Though it never quite topples, it’s not always
structurally sound, and clarity often becomes an issue.
The Villainess kicks off at a breakneck
pace—the first 45 minutes soar past in a blur of intrigue, motorcycle sword fights,
and religious iconography touching on themes of birth, rebirth, and
resurrection. From there, however, the middle portion bogs down. After Sook-hee
finishes her lengthy training period, when she settles into her cover life as
an actress and single mom, the movie takes an extended detour into a place I
call Sleepy Time Village.
Kim Ok-bin does her best in these scenes and delivers a
performance that’s ranks up there with her breakout in
Thirst, creating compelling lead, even in the dullest of
times. Attempts to add layers of drama and emotion work best when paired with
the up-tempo moments and forays into Sook-hee’s backstory. This element is
strongest when she has Lee Joong-sang (Shin Ha-kyun, Sympathy for Mr.
Vengeance), a shadowy man from her past, to bounce off. But when it
fully falls into domestic romance territory with Jung Hyun-soo (Sung Joon)—a
relationship we know from the get-go is feeble bullshit—it strays into
hackneyed melodrama territory. Kim and Shin have chemistry and firel; Sung
Joon, on the other hand, plays glorified smitten teen who’s bad at his one job.
But it’s the action that sells The Villainess,
and the frenetic, inventive approach places it among the year’s best in the
genre. Jung Byung-gil and cinematographer Park Jung-hun stage elaborate
sequences, favoring those that play out as single, continuous takes and rely on
extensive, ornate choreography. At times, it verges a bit too close to
Bourne-style shaky cam, and the swooping camera can be
dizzying—and in non-action sequences, they fall a bit too in love with visual
tricks, especially ubiquitous match cuts early on—but it’s a singularly
ambitious, impressive visual feat.
Frenzied and kinetic, The Villainess
careens all over the place with reckless abandon. While it spirals out into
messy structural territory—this is not the straightforward, pared down revenge
of John Wick and it’s ilk—it hits manic, thrilling,
dangling-off-a-speeding-bus-while-wielding-a-hatchet highs. [Grade:
B]
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