Action and Romance

The Villainess (2017) has an amazing opening: A long, no-cuts (OK, invisible cuts only) fight scene, where one fighter takes out countless opponents in an warehouse lab, filmed from her point of view, as if with a GoPro. Without spoilers, I can say that the movie ends with a similar bravura fight scene. So it’s kind of weird that there is a Korean rom-com in the middle.

The fighter/protagonist is Kim Ok-bin. She kills the last guy by wrapping a rope around his neck and jumping out a window, using him as her anchor. Then she passes out. She comes to in what seems to be a clinic, but when she tries to escape, she runs into a kitchen, a stage, a classroom... After they play a few mind games with her, she finds she is in a secret training camp for assassins. They tell her she is pregnant, and can live a happy life with her child if she will just do a few jobs for them.

She delivers her baby, a daughter, and becomes a covert assassin. She lives in a simple apartment, and meets her neighbor, a cute guy who is geeky yet insistent. But we know that he is the agent sent to keep her under watch. And here is the rom-com part. He is falling in love with her for real, but if he reveals his true identity, she will probably kill him. And she can do it.

We get Kim's history in pieces and flashbacks - she saw her father murdered, she was raised by gangsters and married one. When he is killed at their wedding, she goes berserk. Murders at weddings are a recurring theme here - is this common in Korean cinema?

The rom-com aspect is strange - they don't seem to be playing it for laughs so much as just regular drama. Maybe I'm reading too much into the form.

But the action scene are truly outstanding, in the modern style. The long tracking shot for action reminds me of Tony Jaa's Tom Yum Goong stair fight, the fights in The Raid, and of course the "one-take" fight in Atomic Blonde (because they both use some of the same tricks to cover up cuts). It's brutal, but beautiful.