The Villainess review by Bobby Blakey
Well Go USA continues to bring the best in Asian cinema to the US, offering up a wide variety of films in horror, action, romance and fantasy. Their latest The Villainess takes advantage of the female led action star that has been popular right now, but does it offer up the action fans want or will it be a failed recruitment?
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The Villainess follows Sook-hee who is a trained assassin who was born to kill. She was just a little girl when the training started in Yanbian, China. After the death of her mentor, when the chance of starting a new life was given to her, she came to South Korea as a government agent. They promised her that she will be free after ten years of service. So she begins her new life as a theatre actress. But soon two men Joong-sang and Hyun-soo appear in her new life. And she started to find deep dark secrets about her past. Eventually she take matters into her own hands. The moment this film begins they kick the action into high gear with an awesome first person shooter type of sequence that will leave your head spinning in delight. Sadly the film is a bit all over the place and hit and miss from there.
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Once we get past that bad ass opening it slows the pace down outside of a couple of action sequences. This is where the film bounces around a bit and loses some of its steam. The story is far from bad and in fact works, but they have jam packed so much stuff into it that it often gets lost on itself. Thankfully the performances are good and the final action piece is worth the wait. During this final sequence there are plenty of blood and bullets flying around to keep you on the edge of your seat. They pull no punches during this or the opening one making for some really great end caps that make the movie fully worth checking out.
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In the end this is a great action flick that just gets lost in the details at times. Had they trimmed it up and streamlined some of the middle story and kept it simple it would have likely worked a lot better. I still think most action fans will have a great time with this one and should check it out.