[Written Watched 09 Jul, 2019 for Letterboxd]

Jung Byung-gil's "The Villainess" straddles the fine line of romantic drama and revenge flick with a kind've ease I don't think I've ever seen in an action flick. The dubious relationship between a woman who was raised by a man who seemingly rescues her from a murderer who kills her father, drives much of the protagonists' actions (almost to the point where it begins to feel as though she has no real agency beyond manipulation she is clearly blind to).

The message in the end is that the often overly melodramatic human drama is more important than the violence, and the violence feels all the realer because the script cares about how it impacts its characters.

For all the spectacle that is the film's ability to weave prolonged action sequences together in sharp, frenetic editing that keep up the momentum of the sequence with camera tricks, the choreography really makes the action stand above even the most rote of action movies. It's no wonder the director of "John Wick Chapter 3" lifted an entire action sequence from this film.