The Villainess(2017)
Well Go USA Entertainment Aug 25, 2017 | Limited
A female assassin leaves a trail of bodies behind her as she seeks revenge.
Releases
Original Release | Aug 25, 2017
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Box Office Results
Updated as of Mar 30, 2025 10:40 AM ET
Results
$4,238
$27,741
$8,709,717
$8,737,458
Current Showtimes
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(U.S. Only)
Director & Top Cast
Technical Specifications
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
Other Details
Country of Origin: South Korea
Language: Korean
Summaries
Plot Summary
- In the opening scene of the movie an unnamed highly skilled and trained female assassin enters a hallway. She kills numerous people with her gun and knives. She then enters a room where she sees the boss named Park, and kills all the henchmen and the boss using her combat ability. However, as she tries to make her escape, she is surrounded by cops. She smiles a grim smile.The assassin is shown in a room in an unnamed facility. She is drugged and is given plastic surgery. While recuperating she has a flashback showing an unnamed man with a mustache trying to resuscitate her after a breath holding exercise. He is calling her Sook-hee.The facility turns out to be part of South Korea's intelligence agency and is run by a woman named Kwon-sook. Kwon-sook tells Sook-hee that to give her a new start the agency has faked her death. Kwon-sook tells her they have given her a new identity and name, Chae Yeon-soo. Yeon-soo says she doesn't care and wants to die. Kwon-sook tells Yeon-soo she is pregnant. Kwon-sook offers her a deal: train with her as an agent, work as an agent, and she will have freedom after 10 years of service. Yeon-soo accepts and while in training, gives birth to a daughter, Eun-hye.Still at the facility, Yeon-soo is having a procedure to remove a tattoo from her shoulder and while this is happening, she has a flashback to the unnamed man with a mustache giving her the shoulder tattoo when she was 20-year-old Sook-hee. Another flashback occurs and we again see 20-year-old Sook-hee as a highly skilled and trained assassin trying to kill an unnamed man with yellow teeth. Sook-hee is captured and while beating her, the unnamed man with yellow teeth tells her he did not kill her father. Eventually, the unnamed man with a mustache arrives and shoots the unnamed man with yellow teeth and frees Sook-hee. The flashback continues and we see Sook-hee as an 8 year old being trained to load a pistol by the unnamed man with a mustache. The unnamed man with a mustache tells the young Sook-hee to devote her life as an assassin to him.Kwon-sook gives Yeon-soo a folder with the info for her first "assignment". When she kills the target she looks up to see a young girl on the stairs. This triggers a flashback to 7-year-old Sook-hee seeing her father killed. Sook-hee is hiding under a bed and doesn't get a look at the killer's face, she only hears him whistling an eerie tune. When a man comes back into the room, we are shown that this person is Jang-Chun, the unnamed man with yellow teeth. Jang-Chun was a friend of Sook-hee's father. Her father had stolen a diamond. Jang-Chun sells Sook-hee to a prostitution ring. Sook-hee is about to be forcibly raped by a prostitution client when the unnamed man with a mustache arrives and rescues her. We learn his name is Lee Joong-sang. And we learn how it came about that Joong-sang trained Sook-hee to be this killing machine and why she is so devoted to him.Having completed her first assignment, Yeon-soo is released from the facility and will continue to work for the agency from her own apartment that she shares with her daughter Eun-hye. Unknown to Yeon-soo, Kwon-sook has placed a male agent in the apartment beside Yeon-soo's apartment. His name is Jung-Hyun-soo and he is to befriend Yeon-soo and keep tabs on her.After a few meetings with each other, Yeon-soo asks out Hyun-soo. While noticing Jung-Hyun-soo's tie, it reminds Yeon-soo of a tie she gave to Joong-sang. It is revealed in flashbacks that Sook-hee and Joong-sang had gotten married. We learn in a flashback that the marriage was not the same for Joong-sang as it was for Sook-hee. We learn that Sook-hee says that she is willing to let go of her thirst for revenge if she can get married and live a normal life. Joong-sang sees that his trained assassin would no longer be of much use, so he sets up an act. He stages a wedding with her and pays people to attend the wedding and while on their honeymoon, he fakes saving a gang member called Choi-Chun-Mo and stages his own death. When Sook-hee hears he is dead, she loses her mind and goes on a killing rampage and takes out the whole gang (who she thinks is behind Joong-sang's death). Joong-sang has eliminated his rivals and Joong-sang expects Sook-hee to be killed because of her rage and the sheer numbers of the gang. But they are no match. This is the opening scene of the movie.While on a mission together with Min-ju, a classmate from the facility, Yeon-soo is caught stealing a phone, and in the ensuing fight, Min-ju is killed. The info from the phone has documents about Choi Chun-Mo and the agency is worried that since Yeon-soo knew him, she may be a double-agent. Hyun-soo comforts Yeon-soo and this brings them closer together.Yeon-soo continues to live at the apartment and the agency has figured their next target for her. The agency wants to do an assassination from a wedding catering company so decides to arrange a wedding between Hyun-soo and Yeon-soo. In a callback to the earlier story the agency pays people to attend the wedding and Yeon-soo in her wedding gown aims a rifle out a window to her target, who she sees through the rifle scope is: Joong-sang. She can't kill him, shocked that he's still alive.Joong-sang backtracks the location from which the shots come and identifies Yeon-soo as Sook-hee from the wedding photos. He makes contact with Yeon-soo to verify that it is actually her. He tapes a conversation of the agency and sends it to Yeon-soo. The conversation reveals that Hyun-soo is actually an undercover agent. She turns on the agency.The agency takes Yeon-soo into custody. In the meanwhile, Joong-sang's gang gets to Hyun-soo and Eun-hye. Hyun-soo tries to tell Joong-sang (on the phone) that Eun-hye is, in fact, Joong-sang's daughter hoping for all the killing to stop. Joong-sang doesn't care for the little girl and tells Hyun-soo to kill the kid in exchange for his own life. Hyun-soo tries to fight the gang but is knocked unconscious and left with the little girl and a bomb.Joong-sang stages a "rescue" of Yeon-soo from the agency's custody. As she reaches her apartment, she watches as the bomb goes off and Hyun-soo and her daughter both die. She thinks it's the work of the agency. She goes to confront Kwon-sook, but Kwon-sook has news for her. Hyun-soo had found Jang-Chun, the unnamed man with yellow teeth, and got to know everything. This interview was recorded on surveillance tape. Kwon-sook plays the tape for Yeon-soo.Yeon-soo is consumed with revenge. Yeon-soo tracks down Joong-sang and his gang to a parking garage. She kills all the gang members in the garage and confronts Joong-sang. She says, "How could you do this to me?" He says, "I have that privilege. Because I made you." She replies, "Let me show you. What you made me into."Lee-Joong-sang escapes to the street and meets his remaining gang members and they speed off in a passenger bus. Yeon-soo chases after them. She catches up to the bus, boards the bus, crashes the bus and finally has an axe over Joong-sang's head, he puts his head down and starts whistling an eerie tune. She axes Joong-sang in the head before walking out of the wreckage with the police surrounding her, and smiles a grim smile.
Storyline
- Sook-hee is a trained assassin who was born to kill. She was just a little girl when the training started in Yanbian, China. After the death of her mentor, when the chance of starting a new life was given to her, she came to South Korea as a government agent. They promised her that she will be free after ten years of service. So she begins her new life as a theatre actress. But soon two men Joong-sang and Hyun-soo appear in her new life. And she started to find deep dark secrets about her past. Eventually she take matters into her own hands. — Niaz Islam Arif Raised by gangsters and trained from a tender age to be a pitiless machine of death and destruction, the unequalled assassin Sook-Hee is finally captured. With the promise of a brand-new life, Sook-Hee is recruited by a nefarious Intelligence Agency as a sleeper agent that will be allowed to be free after a full decade of service; however, this is easier said than done. Inevitably, the past will soon catch up with Sook-Hee, threatening to blow her cover, as betrayals and divided devotions will eventually lead to a hazardous path of mayhem and retribution. Who shall stand in the way of a promised future? — Nick Riganas A trained assassin with a troubled past falls in love with her mentor who saved her from prostitution. After the mentor's death, the assassin takes out an entire opponent's gang responsible for her boyfriend's death. She is later captured by the cops but is transferred to an unknown facility where she is given training and asked to work for the agency for ten years in exchange for her n her unborn child's freedom. — Fella_shibby@yahoo.com In Seoul, South Korea, the young woman Sook-hee breaks in a fortress of a dangerous gang alone and kills all the gangsters. She is arrested by the police and sent to a secret facility of an organization that trains assassins commanded by Chief Kwon. Sook-hee is pregnant and has a daughter that is raised in the facility. She is trained as a stage actress and assassin, and Chief Kwon promises her that she will be free with a good allowance after ten-year service. Meanwhile, the agent Hyun-soo, who is in charge to observe her, has a crush on her. In flashbacks, Sook-hee recalls her previous life, when her father and her mentor and husband Joong-sang were murdered. When Sook-hee is released to start her new life, she learns dark secrets from her past. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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