The Villainess - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Villainess

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie

Unlike Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde, our heroine in The Villainess actually knows how to dress in order to fight thugs. Sensible flats to keep yourself grounded, lots and lots of knives, and remaining fully clothed the entire time (albeit in black leather for the final fight). Just like there are many films in Hollywood that feel eerily similar, movies across the pond to good old California can come out coincidentally near each other with very similar story lines. This time the heroine isn’t back stabbing, sleeping her way to the top and smooth as silk. She’s a highly trained assassin who is SERIOUSLY ticked off and ready to hack, slash, and generally destroy here way until she finds the person who killed her father as a little girl. There’s some melodrama along the way that hampers the story line a bit, but overall, The Villainess is a fun Korean revenge thriller and a bloody good time.

Kind of like our protagonist in La Femme Nikita, our heroine is recruited off the street by a shadowy government organization and forced to live her life as an assassin for them. Except instead of being a naive little girl, Sook-hee (Ok-bin Kim) is already a trained assassin. Her father was murdered at a young age, and Sook-hee was taken in by a gangster who trains her to be the best killer she can be. Intent on finding her father’s murderer, she briefly takes a side detour and ALMOST gives up her goal when she marries the mob boss who recruited her, only to have that taken away from her when he’s murdered trying to look for her father’s killer. In a fit of rage she goes in and slaughters the people responsible, only to get captured by the government who sees potential in her. After graduating from super secret assassin school, Sook-hee is given a new identity and let loose as a sleeper agent. To be activated when necessary.

Her boss, Chief Kwon (Seo-hyeong Kim) sends a secret handler to keep an eye on her, but the two end up falling in love and getting married, but not before all hell breaks loose when Sook-hee’s next target ends up being the very same man that she thought died protecting her. That’s right, her old mob boss/dead husband is back, and now the killer assassin doesn’t know who to trust. Her husband is spying on her. Her boss is having her target her supposedly dead husband. And her dead husband is alive and kicking, meaning that he’s been lying to her and keeping her in the dark for untold years.

The flurry of characters takes time to really get straight, but after about 20 minutes everything starts falling into place. Everyone is playing off of each other, never really telling the whole truth, and soon things start to get good. The film’s opening shot is a first person point of view action scene that is truly incredible to watch. As the fight goes on it opens up to a third person point of view just over Sook-hee’s shoulder, and ends in your traditional camera angles. Sadly this style of fighting is only the opening shot, and the rest of the movie depends on traditional filming styles. The action is quick and brutal, with LOTS of blood spray and splatter to amp up the gore levels, however it’s not TOO quick and choppy, allowing for the viewer to actually SEE what’s going on instead of resorting to shaky camera that leaves you nauseated.

The film is high octane and a blast to watch (the end shot with Sook-hee laughing at the police officers is amazingly dark and creepy), but there ARE a few things that I think dropped the score down just a bit. The first being that there is a bit too much melodrama and tear jerking scenes for its own good. I do understand that the Koreans thrive off of melodrama (seriously, watch a Korean drama film/TV show. They’re so off the charts with melodrama that our Soap Operas can’t even attain that level of emotion), but the movie could have been trimmed about 20 minutes worth of drama and sobbing exposition and been much healthier for it. The second thing is that you know EXACTLY who the villain and mysterious killer of her father is going to be from the first 15 minutes of the movie. It’s not that they come out and tell you, but this twist is just a bit too predictable for its good. The use of flashbacks to tell Sook-hee’s back story in regards to her reactions was great, but some of those flashbacks gave away a bit too much, too early.





Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

Well Go USA brings forth an excellent looking 1080p encoded Blu-ray that is one of their better encodes in recent times. I can’t for the life of me track down what resolution master was used, or what cameras were employed, but the movie screams digital and has been heavily color graded as the Koreans like to do. The film mixes a healthy dose of gold in with predominately teal and gray overtones throughout the movie. Black levels are very deep and inky, but the one artifact that seems to not play nice all the time is the ever famous banding issue, usually in the dark when some low level lighting (such as flashlights) are utilized. Brighter shots in the daytime show a LOT better clarity and fine detail, ranging from the blood splattered all over Sook-hee’s face and clothing, to the glint and reflection off of bladed weapons.




Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track in Korean is the one to listen to here, as the English dub is pretty painful (in terms of acting ability), but clarity and dynamics seem very similar between the two. Vocals are crisp and cleanly replicated in the front of the sound stage, and there are some really neat panning effects used during some of the fight scenes (the bus end fight shows off some cool directional shifts as the two careen around the cramped bus). Surround use is quite active, as Sook-hee engages in a TON of complex fight scenes that have her bouncing all over the place, and LFE is effectively powerful and deep. The only complaint I would have is that the is just not as MUCH heavy LFE as I would have expected. The track is still filled with a goodly amount of low end, it just doesn’t pulsate as loud as I would have really expected considering the amount of action. A slight quibble at most.




Extras:

• Making The Villainess - Featurette
• Original trailers

Final Score: ​

The Villainess is a fun blood soaked action adventure, but with a few flaws from keeping it from being as fun as it COULD have been. A few editing marks and some trimming of the overly melodramatic tear jerk moments and this revenge/action flick could have been really good instead of just good. Still, despite the flaws, The Villainess is a lot of fun and has more blood, guts and death than Rambo can handle. It’s stylish and fun, still has enough heart to be a decently scripted affair than just mindless action. Audio and video are great, but Well Go USA gave us some very limited extras to enjoy. Still, definitely worth a good watch if you enjoy Asian action films.




Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jung Sung, Ha-khun Shin, Ok-bin Kim
Directed by: Byung-gil Jung
Written by: Byung-gil Jung, Byeong-sik Jung
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, Korean DTS-HD MA 5.1, English, Korean DD 2.0
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: NR
Runtime: 123 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: November 21st, 2017

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Solid Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I will add this to my watch list.

 

[Michael Scott]

lol, that was fast

 

[tripplej]

Guess we were both online at the same time.