The Villainess Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

The Villainess Blu-ray Movie Review

How do you say 'La Femme Nikita' in Korean?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 21, 2017

If there’s anyone out there left who still doesn’t know what a so-called “first person shooter” videogame is like, there’s an apt analog in the opening sequence of The Villainess, a film which offers a point of view perspective of someone wreaking havoc on a nonstop array of combatants. There’s an almost lunatic ambience to The Villainess’ first several minutes, as the (largely) unseen attacker marauds through a series of skirmishes, leaving everyone either dead or wounded in the wake of the violence. When the “first person” is finally seen (notably in a mirror), it’s only slightly shocking to realize it’s a woman, a shock that's quickly followed up by what seems to be the woman's arrest for all the carnage. And that plot detail might be the last time you will have even an inkling of what's going on in this frenetic but often incoherent film. I've watched The Villainess once all the way through, and then several more times in dribs and drabs to try to piece together various plot elements, and I have to say I'm still not exactly sure what's going on at several key junctures. As such, The Villainess may be one of those films that admittedly delivers incredible adrenaline pumping action sequences, but which perhaps willfully defies any attempts at a "rational" analysis. And that may in fact be part of the film's deliberately askew subtext, which finds a woman (or perhaps more appropriately, women) "remade" as a deadly assassin.

A tagline underneath the film’s title on the Well Go USA Blu-ray release states “an endless vengeance begins”, which perhaps hints at what might be a kind of pretzel structure with the film, where (to paraphrase a certain T.S. Eliot) the story’s “end is its beginning”. In fact it’s next to impossible (at least it was for me) to decipher this film’s chronology, since co-writer and director Jung Byung-gil seems hell bent on defying traditional narrative approaches, offering instead sometimes patently odd vignettes that seem to document the evolution of Sook-he (Kim Ok-bin) into whatever the Korean equivalent of La Femme Nikita would be. Except — as flashbacks seems to document, perhaps she was always supposed to be a hitwoman.

There are a number of undeniable similarities to the now legendary Luc Besson film, including the fact that Sook-he is taken in by a supersecret organization that both literally and figuratively remakes her into their own “killer” image. But even this aspect, which includes some plastic surgery for Sook-he, seems designed to keep the audience from completely grasping what’s going on. When Sook-he tries to burst out of confinement and ends up on stage in what looks like rehearsals for a play, there’s simply no way to avoid the fact that large swaths of The Villainess play very much like a dream (and/or nightmare), where locales shift mysteriously and any supposed narrative through line is tentative at best.

While other plot points also may remind some viewers of Nikita’s own story, there are at least a couple of salient differences, including the fact that Sook-he gives birth while in captivity, something that adds a patently odd soap operatic subtext to her “adventures”. In fact, the “home vs. business” elements of The Villainess are at once one of this film’s most defining characteristics as well as one of its oddest narrative choices. The film seems to be trying to build to some kind of major emotional catharsis, but in my estimation at least its gonzo approach toward telling its story is simply too refracted to ever really resonate very much. Instead, the film coasts (or perhaps more appropriately, bursts) with a series of expertly staged set pieces that finds Sook-he taking out assailants in a series of wildly improbable showdowns.

What’s especially odd about The Villainess is how it seems intent on explaining Sook-he’s transition into a hitwoman by offering flashbacks galore (including back to her troubled childhood), but without any truly clear exposition being offered. Instead the film tends to play like an assumedly coherent story seen through a prism, where little shards of plotting are seen, albeit often shorn of context. It’s routinely frustrating (at least it was for me), and it tends to detract from what is the film’s inarguable energy in its more straightforward action scenes.

I’m frankly still not sure what exactly happened to Sook-he, or at least when certain things happened, but it’s a testament to this film’s visceral impact that in a way the narrative deficiencies don’t end up hobbling the film that seriously. There are such deliriously crafted action sequences in this film, and Kim Ok-bin delivers such a furious performance as Sook-he, that a lack of comprehension tends to fade as one impressive set piece after another unfolds. The film is probably not helped by an overabundance of “jiggly cam” and ADHD editing techniques, but when you have a heroine taking out nemeses with any number of weapons while engaging in a manic motorcycle chase, why argue?

The Villainess Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Villainess is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. I haven't been able to track down any authoritative technical data on the shoot, but this has a generally sharp and well detailed looking transfer that appears to be culled from digital capture. Detail levels pop most convincingly in the more brightly lit moments, many of which kind of ironically tend to take place in the quieter "homebound" scenes in the film. The action sequences tend to take place either in more dimly lit environments, or feature a lot of handheld camerawork, both approaches which tend to create at least the impression of softness or relative lack of fine detail. There are occasional variances in contrast which tend to add a kind of haze over especially some interior shots. As in any number of action adventure outings, there are some fairly heavily graded moments (again in the seemingly inescapable blue or blue-green tones), which, when combined with dim lighting conditions and frenetic camera work, can tend to limit fine detail levels. A couple of nighttime scenes have brief flirtations with banding when sudden bright lighting intrudes.

The Villainess Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Villainess features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks in both the original Korean and an English dub. I'd recommend sticking with the original lossless Korean mix, though truth be told aside from some less than artful voice work on the English track, there's not really a significant difference in the mixes, at least to my ears. The lossless Korean surround track offers a panoply of well placed effects, something that's evident right off the bat (and/or gun and/or sword) in the film's manic opening sequence, where everything from the sounds of crunching bones to audible sprays of blood dart across the soundstage. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly and the film's almost trance inducing score also wafts through the surround channels winningly. Fidelity is top notch and dynamic range very wide on this problem free track.

The Villainess Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of

  Action Choreography (1080i; 2:36)

  The Characters (1080p; 1:42)

• Teaser (1080i; 00:55)


• Trailer (1080p; 2:02)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA releases, the supplements have been authored to follow each other automatically. Trailers for other Well Go USA releases then follow these supplements automatically (they also play at disc boot up).

The Villainess Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Villainess may frankly not make a whale of a lot of sense, but it delivers what many action adventure aficionados are going to be on the outlook for — namely, incredibly exciting set pieces. I wish the film had taken a more straightforward narrative approach, since it seems like the filmmakers really wanted to invest this film with something approaching human emotion. That said, there's something to be said for adrenaline sourced energy, which The Villainess offers in hyperbolic abundance. Technical merits are generally strong, and with caveats noted, The Villainess comes Recommended.