The Villainess is an action film that simultaneously echoes the spirit of 90s Asian action movies, the cinema of Park Chan-wook and even Euro crime-thriller classics...and yet feels...contemporary in its unrelenting energy and aesthetic polish

| Aug 27, 2018

[The Villainness] is 2017's most breathtakingly unhinged action film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 19, 2017

The Villainess is an ambitious, exhilarating, and harrowing film that does South Korea's tradition of top-notch thrillers proud.

| Sep 18, 2017

With a body count in triple digits before the opening credits finish, the bloodily inventive fight sequences work better than the emotional scenes here - and sensible shoes aside, director Jung Byung-gil doesn't bring much new to the genre.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 18, 2017

Not all of it comes together, but its balls-to-the-wall approach is riotous fun to behold ...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 17, 2017

A propulsive, wildly entertaining and hyperkinetic action flick.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 14, 2017

Midnight slickness is The Villainess's signature look, and one it rocks with mesmeric panache.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 14, 2017

"The Villainess" is little more than an action showcase, with way more scenes of turgid espionage than thrilling set pieces. It's for genre die-hards, not a general audience.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 14, 2017

A film of swaggering precision.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 14, 2017

Frenetic, kinetic action meets satisfyingly soapy drama. See it before everyone tries to copy the best bits.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 14, 2017

The Villainess is a wonderfully lurid and overcooked thriller with a plot so melodramatic that you half suspect the filmmakers borrowed it from an opera.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 13, 2017

It's the amazing fights and precisely-executed choreography which make up for the shaky storytelling: whether it is a battle with swords, a night motorbike chase or an axe clash in a bus pelting at full speed, there are undoubtably great moments here.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 12, 2017

'The Long Kiss Goodnight', 'La Femme Nikita', 'Kill Bill'... this South Korean thriller owes a debt to many a great female-assassin thriller, and it's a fun ride for fans of the genre.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 11, 2017

As the carnage mercilessly piles up, we begin to feel nothing. Perhaps that's the point, but it's hard not to want more.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 7, 2017

There's a lot of cool knives on display here, but the people doing the stabbing don't really matter.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 25, 2017

What is entirely new about The Villainess is that it marries its revenge scenario to a melodrama of maternal sacrifice, with the film's terrific star, Kim Ok-bin, suffering more than Joan Crawford ever did.

| Aug 24, 2017

Jung shreds a simple story and then weaves the pieces into an intricate tapestry of flashbacks and pure-action scenes, with the individual strands often sewn together by pictorial rhymes.

| Aug 24, 2017

While I'm generally inclined to applaud an action movie that seeks to be more than just an exercise in carnage, "The Villainess" turns wearyingly stop-and-go whenever it tries to fill in the void of its protagonist's emotional and psychological history.

| Aug 24, 2017

It's hard to enjoy the action when you witness its emotional cost, but once Sook-hee starts slashing goons from atop motorcycles, it's equally impossible to root for the violence to stop.

| Aug 24, 2017

Ping-ponging from gonzo action to domestic drama to spy thriller and culminating in an electrifying showdown aboard a speeding bus, The Villainess delivers all the overstuffed thrills we've come to expect from Korean action cinema.

| Original Score: B- | Aug 24, 2017