The Villainess

The Villainess (악녀) is a 2017 South Korean action thriller film directed by Jung Byung-gil, starring Kim Ok-vin. The film had its world premiere at the 70th Cannes Film Festival in May 2017.

According to Jung, the movie was inspired by La Femme Nikita by Luc Besson, which he had seen at the age of 10.

Plot
Sook-hee, a highly skilled assassin, enters a hallway and then a gym, and kills numerous people before being surrounded by cops and smiles. Later, Sook-Hee is drugged and taken to South Korea's intelligence agency, which provides her with plastic surgery. To give her a new start, they also fake her death and assign her a new name: Chae Yeon-soo.

Yeon-soo learns that she is pregnant, and the agency's leader, Kwon-sook, offers her freedom if she trains with them and works as their agent for ten years. She accepts and while in training, gives birth to a daughter, Eun-hye. Having completed her first assignment, Yeon-soo is given an apartment to share with her daughter. Unknown to Yeon-soo, Kwon-sook places an agent named Jung Hyun-soo in the apartment next door, who is to befriend Yeon-soo and keep tabs on her. After a few meetings, Yeon-soo and Hyun-soo fall for each other. Later, Yeon-soo is sent on her first "assignment". The target she kills turns out to be the father of a young girl. This triggers the memories of her past

Past: A 7 year old Sook-Hee witnesses her father's death but does not get a look at the killer's face; she only hears him whistling. Years later, Sook-Hae tries to kill Jang-Chun, a man with yellow teeth, believing him to be the killer, but gets captured and beaten. While beating her, Jang-Chun tells her he did not kill her father. He eventually sells Sook-hee to a prostitution ring. She is about to be assaulted by a client when someone named Lee Joong-sang arrives and rescues her, while also killing Jang-Chun.

Joong-sang decides to train Sook-hee to be a killing machine, and she becomes devoted to him. The two eventually get married. Sook-hee is willing to let go of her thirst for revenge if she can live a normal life with him. Seeing his trained assassin would no longer be of much use, Joong-sang sets up an act. While on their honeymoon, he fakes saving a gang member called Choi Chun-Mo and stages his own death. When Sook-hee learns about Joong-sang's "death", she goes on a killing rampage and takes out a whole gang that was known to hate Joong-sang. Joong-sang expects her to die killing his rivals, but they end up being no match for her.

Present: While on a mission with another agent named Min-ju, Yeon-soo is caught stealing a phone. Min-ju is killed in the ensuing fight. The stolen phone contains documents about Choi Chun-Mo and the agency is worried that since Yeon-soo knew him, she may be a double-agent. Hyun-soo comforts her and this brings them closer together. The agency wants Yeon-soo to kill her next target from a wedding catering company, so they arrange a wedding between her and Hyun-soo. Aiming her rifle out a window, Yeon-soo finds out her target is Joong-sang.

Shocked that he is still alive, she misses her shot and fails to kill him. Joong-sang visits the location from which he was attacked and identifies Yeon-soo as Sook-hee. He meets with her and later sends her an audio file that reveals that Hyun-soo is actually an undercover agent. When Hyun-soo returns back to the apartment with Eun-hye, he is attacked by Joong-sang's gang. Hyun-soo reveals to them that Eun-hye is Joong-sang's daughter, hoping for all the killings to stop. However, Joong-sang does not care about this revelation and plants a bomb near them. While reaching her apartment, Yeon-soo watches the bomb go off. Hyun-soo jumps out of the building with her daughter, however, both of them are killed in the fall. Later, Yeon-soo listens to an audio recording of Hyun-soo asking his superior if he and Yeon-soo can get married for real.

Consumed with revenge, Yeon-soo tracks down Joong-sang to a parking garage and kills many of his men. She confronts Joong-sang, who escapes to the street and meets with his remaining henchmen. They all speed off in a shuttle bus. Yeon-soo chases after them, boards the bus and holds an axe over Joong-sang's head. He puts his head down and starts whistling the same tune she heard when her father died, revealing that Joong-sang is his killer. Yeon-soo kills him with the axe. Before walking out of the wreckage with the police surrounding her, Yeon-soo smiles and laughs maniacally.

Cast

 * Kim Ok-vin as Sook-hee / Chae Yeon-soo
 * Min Ye-ji as young Sook-hee
 * Shin Ha-kyun as Lee Joong-sang
 * Sung Joon as Jung Hyun-soo
 * Kim Seo-hyung as Kwon-sook
 * Jo Eun-ji as Kim Sun
 * Lee Seung-joo as Choon-mo
 * Son Min-ji as Min-joo
 * Kim Yeon-woo as Eun-hye

Cameo

 * Jung Hae-kyun as Jang Chun
 * Park Chul-min as Sook-hee's father
 * Kim Hye-na as training female rookie

Release
The Villainess was released in South Korean cinemas on June 8, 2017.

According to the distributor Next Entertainment World the film was sold prior to the local release to 115 countries including North America, South America, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, Taiwan and the Philippines. Later it was sold to additional territories which includes Japan, China, Singapore, India increasing to a total of 136 countries worldwide.

Reception
The Villainess received a four-minute standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival.

The film was also screened at the 16th New York Asian Film Festival which was held from June 30 to July 16, 2017. At the festival, the film received the Daniel E. Craft Award for Excellence in Action Cinema.

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 84% based on 85 reviews with an average rating of 6.84/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Villainess offers enough pure kinetic thrills to satisfy genre enthusiasts -- and carve out a bloody niche for itself in modern Korean action cinema." Review aggregator website Metacritic gave the film a rating of 64 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

TV series
In July 2021, it was announced a TV series based on the film is in development with Amazon with writer Francisca Hu writing and executive producing the pilot.