# The Villainess

The Villainess (Korean: 악녀, romanized: Ak Nyeo) is a 2017 South Korean action thriller film directed by Jung Byung-gil, starring Kim Ok-vin. The film had its world premiere at the 70th Cannes Film Festival in May 2017.
According to Jung, the movie was inspired by La Femme Nikita by Luc Besson, which he had seen at the age of 10. This is the third time stars Kim Ok-vin and Shin Ha-kyun have worked together, following Thirst from 2009 and The Front Line from 2011.

## Plot

Sook-hee, a highly skilled assassin, enters a building and kills numerous people before jumping out a window and being surrounded by cops. South Korea's intelligence agency reviews footage of her attack, and on chief Kwon-sook's suggestion select her for recruitment as an asset. Sook-Hee wakes up confined to an institution which provides her with plastic surgery, fakes her death, assigns her the new identity of Yeon-soo, and trains her and other women in physical and social skills.
Yeon-soo learns that she is pregnant, and Kwon-sook offers her and her child freedom if she's willing to work for them for ten years. She accepts and while in training gives birth to a daughter, Eun-hye. After exceeding her fellow trainees in combat skill, she's assigned her first assassination, in which she kills her target accidentally in front of his daughter and barely escapes. As she was promised for successful completion, Yeon-soo is given an apartment to share with her daughter. Unknown to Yeon-soo, Kwon-sook places an agent named Jung Hyun-soo, who had been aiming for this specific assignment, in the apartment next door; he is to befriend Yeon-soo and keep tabs on her. After a lot of effort from Jung Hyun-soo, who starts becoming a co-caretaker of Eun-hye, and the false assertion that his background is authentic by Kwon-sook, Yeon-soo and Hyun-soo fall for each other.
Past: A 7 year old Sook-Hee witnesses her father's death but does not get a look at the killer's face; she only hears a whistled tune. Jang-Chun, a former friend of her father's who was jealous of a stolen jewel that her father had acquired, is present during his murder and finds the hiding Sook-hee. He kidnaps her and eventually sells her to a child prostitution ring. Just as she's about to be assaulted by a client, an assassin, Lee Joong-sang, kills the client, and she kills a henchman in the door just before he can shoot Lee Joong-sang. Lee Joong-sang takes Sook-hee with him and trains her to be an assassin.
As Sook-hee gets older, she becomes more and more devoted, and eventually attracted, to Joong-sang, and tells him that she's willing to let go of her revenge if he were to marry her. He hesitantly agrees. While on their honeymoon, he fakes saving a gang member called Choi Chun-Mo and stages his own death. When Sook-hee is shown a mangled corpse and told it to be her husband's, she goes on the movie's intro rampage, taking out the gang Choi Chun-Mo tells her to have been his target, so her husband's murderers.
Present: While on a mission with befriended fellow assassin Min-ju, Yeon-soo is caught stealing a phone. Min-ju is badly injured in the ensuing fight, and as punishment for her lackluster performance, Kwon-sook refuses to drive her to an emergency room, letting Min-Ju bleed out in the car. The stolen data contains documents about Choi Chun-Mo. The agency is worried that since Yeon-soo knew him, she may be a double-agent, but Kwon-sook reassures her colleagues that she's not, claiming that she's her husband's killer. Meanwhile, Yeon-soo breaks down in tears at home, and Hyun-soo, who was there to look after Eun-hye, comforts her. Some time later, Yeon-soo and Hyun-soo decide to get married; Yeon-soo argues to Kwon-sook that this is to make sure that Eun-hye won't be alone if she were to die. Kwon-sook agrees and organizes the marriage event. During the ceremony, she calls Yeon-soo, giving her her next target, a man across the street from the venue. Aiming her rifle out a window, Yeon-soo recognizes her target as Joong-sang and, under emotional distress, misses her shot.
Joong-sang visits the location from which he was attacked and identifies Yeon-soo as Sook-hee. He confronts her in a restaurant, and they exchange mutual threats while Yeon-soo can barely hold back tears. Kwon-sook confronts Yeon-soo about meeting her target; Yeon-soo claims it was only a coincidence. Later, Joong-sang sends Yeon-soo an audio file that reveals Hyun-soo to be an undercover agent, and she warns him about the new agent the agency is sending to finish her job. Meanwhile, Yeon-soo defends Hyun-soo's failing towards Kwon-sook and starts digging into her target's identity, eventually realizing him to be her ex-husband.
When Hyun-soo returns back to the apartment with Eun-hye, he is attacked by Joong-sang's gang. Hyun-soo reveals to them that Eun-hye is Joong-sang's daughter, hoping for the killings to stop. However, Joong-sang does not care about this revelation and has a bomb planted in the apartment, leaving a knocked out Hyun-soo and a confused Eun-hye next to it. About to reach home, Yeon-soo suddenly sees her apartment explode and Hyun-soo holding Eun-hye being blown out the window onto the street. Neither of them survive. Devastated and angry, Yeon-soo confronts Kwon-sook, believing the agency to be responsible. Kwon-sook shows her video recordings of her apartment, revealing Joong-sang's gang to be the murderers, even having deliberately waited for her arrival before triggering the bomb. Kwon-sook also plays a video file showing Hyun-soo asking Kwon-sook for permission to marry Yeon-soo "for real", revealing him to have had genuine feelings for her. In the recording, Kwon-sook scolds him, saying Yeon-soo is likely to die sooner than later, and says she didn't want him to be like her. In the present, under tears, she tells Yeon-soo that she wishes that Hyun-soo and Yeon-soo had met under different circumstances.
Consumed with revenge, Yeon-soo tracks down Joong-sang to a parking garage and kills many of his men. She confronts Joong-sang, corners him alone, and demands to know if he ever loved her. Joong-sang says he did love her, but "as punishment" couldn't anymore as he killed her father, but then follows by asking if this is what she wanted to hear, and says that she can believe it if she wants to. He escapes to the street and meets with his remaining henchmen. They all speed off in a shuttle bus. Yeon-soo chases after them, boards the bus, crashes it and, badly wounded, holds an axe over Joong-sang's head. He puts his head down, saying that killing him will change nothing, and that if she does, the "real pain" will begin. Just as the camera moves off of him and onto her, the same tune that was whistled when her father was murdered is heard, but it's unclear if Joong-sang is actually whistling it or if she just made the decision to believe him to be her father's murderer. Yeon-soo kills him with the axe. Walking out of the wreckage with the police surrounding her, Yeon-soo smiles and laughs maniacally.

## Cast

* Kim Ok-vin as Sook-hee / Chae Yeon-soo
** Min Ye-ji as young Sook-hee
* Shin Ha-kyun as Lee Joong-sang
* Sung Joon as Jung Hyun-soo
* Kim Seo-hyung as Kwon-sook
* Jo Eun-ji as Kim Sun
* Lee Seung-joo as Choon-mo
* Son Min-ji as Min-joo
* Kim Yeon-woo as Eun-hye

### Cameo

* Jung Hae-kyun as Jang Chun
* Park Chul-min as Sook-hee's father
* Kim Hye-na as training female rookie

## Release

The Villainess was released in South Korean cinemas on June 8, 2017.
According to the distributor Next Entertainment World the film was sold prior to the local release to 115 countries including North America, South America, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, Taiwan and the Philippines. Later it was sold to additional territories which includes Japan, China, Singapore, India increasing to a total of 136 countries worldwide.

## Reception

The Villainess received a four-minute standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival.
The film was also screened at the 16th New York Asian Film Festival which was held from June 30 to July 16, 2017. At the festival, the film received the Daniel E. Craft Award for Excellence in Action Cinema.
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 84% based on 85 reviews with an average rating of 6.84/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Villainess offers enough pure kinetic thrills to satisfy genre enthusiasts -- and carve out a bloody niche for itself in modern Korean action cinema." Review aggregator website Metacritic gave the film a rating of 64 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

## Awards and nominations

| Award | Category | Recipient | Result |
| 16th New York Asian Film Festival | Daniel E. Craft Award for Excellence in Action Cinema | The Villainess | Won |
| 21st Fantasia International Film Festival | GURU Prize for Best Action Feature Film | The Villainess | Silver |
| 26th Buil Film Awards | Best Actress | Kim Ok-vin | Nominated |
| 26th Buil Film Awards | Best Cinematography | Park Jung-hoon | Won |
| 1st The Seoul Awards | Best Actress | Kim Ok-vin | Nominated |
| 1st The Seoul Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Kim Seo-hyung | Nominated |
| 54th Grand Bell Awards | Best Actress | Kim Ok-vin | Nominated |
| 54th Grand Bell Awards | Best Lighting | Lee Hae-won | Nominated |
| 54th Grand Bell Awards | Best Cinematography | Park Jung-hoon | Won |
| 54th Grand Bell Awards | Best Editing | Heo Sun-mi | Nominated |
| 54th Grand Bell Awards | Technical Award | The Villainess | Won |
| 38th Blue Dragon Film Awards | Best Cinematography and Lighting | Park Jung-hoon & Lee Hae-won | Nominated |
| 38th Blue Dragon Film Awards | Best Technical Achievement - Stunts | Kwon Ki-deok | Won |
| 38th Blue Dragon Film Awards | Best Actress | Kim Ok-vin | Nominated |
| 18th Busan Film Critics Awards | Technical Award | Park Jung-hoon | Won |
| 18th Busan Film Critics Awards | Technical Award | Kwon Kwi-deok | Won |
| 54th Baeksang Arts Awards | Best Actress | Kim Ok-vin | Nominated |
| 23rd Chunsa Film Art Awards | Best Actress | Kim Ok-vin | Won |

## TV series

In July 2021, it was announced a TV series based on the film is in development with Amazon with writer Francisca Hu writing and executive producing the pilot.