The Villainess (5 Stars)

This is the 51st film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

The annual Fantasy Film Festival always places the two films that are expected to be the most popular in the first and last place. This year the festival opened with "IT Chapter One" and closed with "The Villainess". I agree with the choices. They're two very different films, but I've awarded both of them five stars.

After an opening sequence with the biggest body count I've seen in the first few minutes of any film, "The Villainess" settles into a story similar to "Nikita". Perhaps it's more accurate to call it "Double-Nikita". After Sook-hee's arrest she's taken to a secret government agency that trains young women to be assassins. Unlike in "Nikita", she was already an expert killing machine before her arrest, after being trained by a gangster earlier in her life. The new training is only needed to polish her social skills and make her more efficient as a killer; i.e. if she's sent to kill someone she should avoid killing 50 other people who get in the way.

Sook-hee is promised that she will only have to serve the agency for 10 years, but after her first mission she will be allowed to live a normal life outside, as long as she carries out assassinations when needed. Her first mission is after three years. She leaves the agency's building and finds a job as a stage actress. She gets married. Months go by, in which she hopes the agency has forgotten her, but the call to duty comes when it's least expected.

This is a stunning film. The action scenes are better than in any Korean film I've seen until now, and there's also great emotional depth.