The Villainess

2017 ‘악녀’ Directed by Jung Byung-gil

An endless vengeance begins

A young girl is raised as a killer in the Yanbian province of China. She hides her identity and travels to South Korea where she hopes to lead a quiet life but becomes involved with two mysterious men.

Kim Ok-bin Shin Ha-kyun Sung-Joon Kim Seo-hyung Jo Eun-ji Lee Seung-joo Jung Hae-kyun Park Chul-min Son Min-Ji Min Ye-ji Ji Dae-han Seo Beom-sik Kim Jae-hyun-I Park Joo-ha Kim Hae-na Jung Sung-yoon Yoon Jin-young

Alternative Titles

La Villana, AK-Nyeo, 惡女, Aknyeo, Ak-Nyeo Aka The Villainess, The Villainess - Professione assassina

drama action

129 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Todd Gaines ★★★½ 18

One criticism I frequently point out in high octane action movies is the lack of plot development. Well, I finally found an insane action movie with a complex story. The irony in The Villainess is perhaps it has too much plot. But, don’t get me wrong, the action is spot-on amazing.
The opening scene is more-than-likely the action event of the year. Filmed straight outta Call of Duty, and featuring a body count that would make King Leonidas of Sparta blush. The first-person shooter film perspective does give me a slight headache, but I must admire the action choreography. The scene is the fix us action junkies need for our addiction.
The Villainess is Korean to the bone. You see…
Review by davidehrlich ★★½ 5

Director Jung Byung-gil insists that “The Villainess” was made without any reference to preexisting films; that all of its gonzo action was hatched directly from his own demented imagination (with assists from stunt coordinator Kwon Gui-duck and cinematographer Park Jung-hun). And yet the very first scene of the movie busts out of the gate like a female-driven remake of “Hardcore Henry,” Jung immediately launching us into a prolonged first-person sequence in which our avatar slaughters dozens of men in a dingy crystal meth lab. Imagine the hallway fight from “Oldboy,” but three times as long and incalculably more violent (eek, another reference).
This woman murders everybody, fighting them all at least two at a time and leaving no survivors. We…
Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★★ 3

Adrenaline junkies looking to score look no further.. have I got a film for you! There was more slicing and dicing going on in the Villainess than Benihana's dinner rush hour!
Wickedly delicious long takes featuring jaw-dropping fight scenes that only South Korea can deliver! Let's face it once you've gone South Korean Cinema there's just no going back! If this doesn't turn your crank nothing will!
The film certainly didn't waste any time dropping nonstop action on you straight out of the gate with a gloriously super long take of a female assassins overindulgence in revenge resulting in an inordinate amount of mass casualties that will freaking blow your mind!
The film attempted to include a fairly interesting and…
Review by LeSchroeck ★★★★ 8

Fantasy Filmfest 2017, die wilde 13: The Villainess ist genau mein Kino. Es beginnt mit einer Plansequenz, die von der Ego- in die 3rd-Person-Perspektive wechselt, nachdem ihr Zentrum, Killerin Sook-hee, mit dem Kopf gegen einen Spiegel geknallt wird. Und es zeigt ein Schlachtfest, das mal eben in 10 Minuten mit allen John Wicks, Atomic Blondes, Hardcore Henrys oder Kingsmen den Boden aufwischt. Was folgt, ist tatsächlich nicht mehr wirklich originell: die koreanische Antwort auf Luc Bessons "Nikita". Aber es geht für mich deutlich tiefer, weil Regisseur Byung-gil Jeong das Seelenleben dieser Auftragsmörderin auf gleich drei (Zeit)Ebenen aufsplittet und dem "Hitgirl lernt die Liebe kennen"-Prinzip ein paar mehr Fallhöhen verschafft. Und weil er die Action, die Inszenierung und den (auch CGI-)Blutzoll einfach in neue, formschöne und kinetisch ungeahnte Höhen schraubt. Wer "The Raid 2" liebt, darf auch dieser tragischen Kampfmaschine sein Herz schenken. Ich hab es definitiv getan.
Review by matt lynch ★★★

Sort of reminded me of ATOMIC BLONDE in that it's a little bit sad that I was so bored by a movie with action scenes this good.
Review by Rafael Jovine ★★★½ 4

So I’ve heard of this film years back and the reception for this was very mixed. People either loved this or hated, and after watching this I get both parties hence why I find myself very in between the two.
On one hand, the performances on here are pretty good, which helps when the movie asks you to care for this character towards the end. The score was actually really solid as well, with its sense of fun and doom its just effective and helped me in many ways immersing myself into the story. But the greatness on this picture has to be many of its action sequences, most of them shot in “long takes” with its final act almost…
Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★ 4

Contains some of the most unfathomably spectacular set
pieces & inexplicably incredible stunt work I've ever seen.
Review by josh lewis ★★★

outclasses the dreadful Hardcore Henry simply by aiming its ambitions a little higher than feature-length youtube gimmick, sadly however park chan-wook and Kill Bill are difficult acts to follow in the revenge picture game. not convinced this gopro action bullshit is ever going to really work but this is probably the best case for it.
Review by The Armando Jimenez ★★★★ 5

I just found my true religion...Action films like this bad motherfucker. I can go on for days spilling the tea, for this tough bitch, but I'll just tell you all to pull out them piggy banks and shower this movie not only with your crumbly ass stripper dollar bills, but your praise.
Review by Mario ★★★★ 6

Korean cinema >>>>>
Review by YI JIAN ★★★★½ 4

My god my head is still spinning, I need to go do some pushups now or maybe just jump around the room to shake the adrenaline off. If you had told me that the shockingly explosive action of the raid 2 can be upped to a higher level I would not have believed you for one single second, yet here we have the koreans breaking through the window, axe in one hand katana the other looking for blood, revealing that they had hidden a royal fucking flush behind their sleeves all along, this is madness, I'm not a fan of the family/gang drama but the fight + chase scenes are seriously, really, truly, to, die, for.
Review by Lizzy ☭ ★★★★½ 2

This film almost immediately opens with a five minute one-take sequence that mixes all the first-person greatness of Hardcore Henry and the tight, confined brilliance of Oldboy’s hallway scene into a unique and beautiful hybrid built up of disgustingly awesome blood-drenched carnage that is an action-procession work of awesomeness in itself.
Somehow, it only gets even better from that point onward. A

Recent reviews

Review by Dhaara ★★★½

The starting stunt and ending stunt was just too great. It was exactly like a game. And it even felt like single shot ones. I won't tell it is a great movie. But, the stunts are amazing.❤️🔥
Review by Rafael Fonseca ★★

Se a câmera tá sempre em movimento significa que o filme é bom.

If the camera is always moving that means the movie is good.
Review by SUJIN_ ★★★

김옥빈은 대한민국 영화계에 정말 귀한 배우임이 틀림없다.
Review by Free-Do

Pengambilan gambarnya ini seperti pisau bermata dua, di satu sisi bisa bikin penonton terkesima tapi di sisi lain bisa membuat penonton kurang nyaman dengan camera movement nya. Untuk koreografi fighting scene & visual effect masih terlihat fake. Kalo alur ceritanya ya so so lah
Review by Colin O'Brien ★★★½

The body count eclipses many other films before the opening credits are even over, the whole thing is mental and incredibly well produced. It's a strange combination of drama and balls to the wall action, but it somehow works.
Review by DomGraddon ★★★★

Very entertaining, very unique to anything I've personally seen, action and fights scenes were fantastic, the plot and story was very complex and sometimes challenging but it just added layers and layers which I liked.
The setting of the film was cool and hypnotic.
It was like oldboy, John wick and the notebook all rolled into one
Review by terserah ★★★½

Hyun Soo opa cakep dan mengurangi kegersangan di film ini.
film yg cukup menegangkan namun blm se gore Kill Bill.
mantap!
Review by Sam Sharma ★★★★

The opening action sequence should be required viewing at film schools.
Review by wongk33 ★★½

Context is everything (and isn't just for kings, Captain Gabriel Lorca), so I question whether I'm missing important contextual information when I find myself in disagreement with the majority about a movie. In this case, my annoyance with "The Villainess" grew over the running time, so I was left wondering if I missed the moment in 2017 when this film was received as exciting and provocative instead of distractingly hyperkinetic, self-indulgent, and overwrought.
I can concede that I might have been too influenced by a recent video on Kurosawa's use of camera movement to appreciate the swooping and flipping camera movements that director Jung Byung-gil and cinematographer Park Jung-hun inflicted on us. The film opens with a bravura first person…
Review by Brian Spath ★★★

Just a bit of that South Korean ultra-violence.
Review by hamka ★★★½

dengan koreografi laga dan teknik pengambilan gambar sebagus ini, the villainess memang pantas dijadikan salah satu film aksi korsel terbaik. apalagi skripnya tidak buruk untuk ukuran premis se-mainstream ini. 2 jam yang intens dan mendebarkan, jung byung gil sekali lagi sukses besar dengan filmnya.
Review by greyvol ★★★★½

악녀!