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+---- Thread: The Villainess (/showthread.php?tid=4193)
The Villainess - Drunk Monk - 09-08-2017
I've been gorging myself with a tasty smorgasbord of ultravi lately. There was Wolf Warrior 2, Atomic Blonde, John Wick 2, and now this. The Villainess takes ultravi to a whole new level. Mindblowing cinematography. I still can't quite fathom how they got some of those shots. There's a lot of first person perspective like a shooter game or Hardcore Henry (which is in my queue). And it's very wet - if it wasn't raining, it was a shower of sanguinosity. Arterial sprays galore, so many I lost count. The pitter patter of rain or the gurgle spurt of blood.
Cf and I saw this together and unfortunately our version had the subtitles cut off. We were warned at the box office but went for it anyway. As it turns out, it's a rather convoluted tale - very Korean - with a lot of flashbacks and a face operation that allows the main protagonist to be played by two women. I kept track of where they were in time by the facial cuts. There's really intense action for the first third of the film, then a catch-your-breath romance that has an obvious set up course for the finale, then the finale, which yes, begins with a sword fight, and then goes all sorts of brutally violent places. There's a lot of wakizashis, hatchets and sledgehammers. And guns, lots of guns.
Both cf and I said we were looking forward to each other's DOOM reviews, and I'm not sure I'm done with mine yet. This is distributed by Well Go USA, so it'll probably come to Netflix in a few months, and I'll have to watch it for the subs, and also to break down those glorious action sequences again. In the end, I really wasn't sure why everyone was killing each other, but it didn't really matter because the ultravi overpowers everything else. But still, the plot seemed intricate enough without the subs, so perhaps the story makes it even more engaging. I was pretty glued throughout, but y'all know my luv of complex choreography. The action scenes here are awesome and astounding. They break some novel ground here and there's nothing like fresh new ultravi. It's what I go to movies for.
Oh, and that motorcycle chase scene in the tunnel that I posted in the coming soon thread is even better on the big screen. Whenever the action gets rolling in this film, hold on for a wild ride. Top DOOM honors for the fights and chases alone.
And I haven't even got to the assassin school for ladies. So weird and so cool.
Alright cf - that's my start. Over to you.
Did we see the same movie? Well, yes we did. - cranefly - 09-09-2017
The Villainess is a Korean movie that, due to some glitch with the print (noted at the ticket window), lacks English subtitles.
Fortunately for me, I remembered by hearing aids.
Two groups of agents spy, scheme and do battle with each other. Let's call them North Korea and South Korea. But each side is fraught with so much infighting that you begin to realize there isn't just a North and South, but East, West, Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, and Southwest factions as well. On top of that, there's double agents, triple agents, quadruple agents, all the way up to nine-tuple agents, which is the point at which I started to lose the thread of the narrative.
A teenage girl decides to kill everybody. She comes close to succeeding before being captured -- by Southeast Korea, let's say. She's subjected to some cruel torture -- because killing everybody isn't a very nice thing to try to do -- after which an evil plastic surgeon performs surgery on her face so that she looks, uh, well, exactly the same.
Except for a nick on her right cheek, which matches the nick on the right cheek of the guy she's in love with.
Though it's never explicitly spelled out, I suspect they were actually conjoined twins separated shortly after birth. When they realize this fact late in the film, it puts a dent in their budding romance.
Meanwhile ("meanwhile" plays a big role in this movie) an androgynous woman infiltrates the all-male governing body of, say, Southwest Korea, where she plays psychological games with everyone around her, including herself.
Oh, and then there's the villainess herself, who trains so hard that she has a baby. The baby grows into a two-year-old girl whose superpower is talking with her mouth full of rice.
Near the climax, all the agents of all the factions scream and fight and bloodlet around the girl, trying to get her to swallow the rice. But though she is terrified and crying (and my gosh she deserves an Oscar, and life-long psychotherapy), she keeps the rice in her mouth.
All in all, a very stylish production with some surreal sets and scenes and a complicated storyline replete with so many flashbacks that I couldn't keep track of who might be whom at different ages -- all on top of wild and brilliantly shot action sequences of astonishing variety.
Definitely worth a revisit when there's some English words at the bottom of the screen.
Rice - Drunk Monk - 09-09-2017
That rice scene was so disturbing. My only reprieve was I predicted her fate (kinda obvious for this film).
Upon reflection, this film had the most face blood spatters and sledgehammers of anything I've seen lately - to its credit.
And I beg to differ about the protagonist looking the same before and after the face surgery. The before one had bobbed hair and the after one was much hotter. I had a more difficult time telling them male roles apart. Apart from the cute dude, the thugs were really confusing. Didn't help that they all dressed the same, with the same hair, and similar scars.
You're right about all the rain -- forgot to mention it - cranefly - 09-09-2017
Yeah, I figured I missed something in that plastic surgery scene. Maybe I blinked or something. I sure wasn't reading the subtitles.
As for all the face blood spatters, oddly, I don't think they used a single blood pellet. Very likely they couldn't find any after Headshot used up the world's supply.
Sanguine - Drunk Monk - 09-09-2017
I think the filmmakers realized that when you are spurting that much blood out of your neck or chest, there just ain't nothing left to spit. It's sanguinous spittle realism.
The whole face change schtick kinda bugs me in retrospect. What was the point of that? It reminded me of that Bunuel film where he got all surreal artsy and cast two women in the same role, alternating them at random. But then I thought that maybe they broke one of the actresses while filming stunts. The subs would've helped here.
You oughta review Headshot too, just for fun and practice. I've forgotten a lot of that one plotwise, just that it was gratuitously sanguinous.
Saw it again with subtitles - cranefly - 01-18-2018
I just rewatched The Villainess, this time with subtitles -- which helped a bit, but also made clear that this is one very complicated story, made even more confusing by a multitude of flashbacks.
To my mind, this is almost a great movie. It's certainly an inspired bit of direction and cinematography, with lots of fights that alone are worth the price of admission. But where it falls short is in its weak depictions of love. There are two great loves in the Villainess's life, and the earliest and strongest of them isn't presented convincingly. I don't know whether there were problems between the two actors or whether the director just didn't know how to depict it effectively. But it is key for the story to work, and this shortcoming sorely hurts in the later stages.
At this point I'm venturing into what might be minor spoiler territory. I don't think it would hurt your viewing, but be forewarned.
...
DM puzzled over the plastic surgery and other confusing blurrings of character, and think I've got a better understanding of what was going on. The Villainess gets plastic surgery after she's captured by the assassin school, and this happens after the death of her first great love. But of course he isn't really dead, and for some reason he henceforth drops his mop of a hairdo and is later seen with a stylish hairdo that makes his look much younger (that in itself is jarring). The reason it was necessary for both to dramatically change their looks was so that when they encounter each other later on, they don't immediately recognize each other.
One more bit of a possible spoiler. A crucial question that arises is, "Did you ever really love me?" and when eventually the answer is given, it is predicated on something else, which sort of muddies the whole issue. In other words, perhaps the most important exchange in the movie is muddled, and the action that immediately follows doesn't really seem to fit what was said. So the movie lost any kind of powerful impact at the end, making it somewhat forgettable -- and yes, I had forgotten some of the later stuff from my first viewing because of this lack of emotional punch.
There are emotions throughout, especially in the Villainess, who does a great job, but not the most important emotions and at the right time.
Still very much worth watching.
RE: The Villainess - Drunk Monk - 01-18-2018
For some reason, the love story aspect of this film completely escaped me. Perhaps it was the intense over-the-top sanguineous ultravi. Yeah, that was it. That must've overshadowed the love story.
I still haven't seen the subtitled version. I've got the DVD+BRD sitting on my player at home, in a stack with some others I've been meaning to watch. I fear having subs might ruin this film for me. Sometimes a little mystery makes it better.
RE: The Villainess - Dr. Ivor Yeti - 02-18-2018
THIS WAS THE GREATEST MOVIE OF ANY PLACE EVER FOREVER AND STUFF!!!!!
RE: The Villainess - Drunk Monk - 03-06-2023
And over a half decade later, I finally watch this with subtitles.
Damn. How the hell did we watch this without subs? It’s hella confusing with subs. The way it moves back and forth through time and stories is torturously convoluted. It’s as messy as the blood soaked landscapes after each battle.
On second viewing, a lot of the action choreo tricks unravel. The opening oner has digital spliced every time the jiggly shot turns away from the figures, which is between almost every action. It’s still an incredible oner - a chunk of movie magic. The motorcycle chase is still impressive although shorter than I remember. Maybe this was an edited version. I barely remembered the finale bus fight. Maybe by then my brain was full and couldn’t store anymore.
John Wick 3 does lift the motorcycle scene and the assassin school concept in Angelica Huston’s scenes. That’s a less obvious poach but the connection is clear. There’s an upcoming chapter in the Wickverse title Ballerina that is supposed to expand on this - perhaps it’ll just be a remake of The Villainess.
Seen on Amazon prime - freevee so it’s cut with some very annoying ads. I think it might be on Hoopla too. I should’ve watched it there.
RE: The Villainess - Dr. Ivor Yeti - 03-06-2023
That is also the Black Widow trope, but ultimately, it is the La Femme Nikita trope.
RE: The Villainess - Drunk Monk - 03-06-2023
Never trust a ballerina. She’s prolly an assassin too.
I’ve been meaning to rewatch La Femme Nikita too.