There was a time in the 90s when Hollywood action movies courted the directors and styles of Asian cinema while simultaneously inhibiting such styles to fit in with their more mainstream tastes. It never made sense to me. The first casualty of this stupidity was bringing John Woo to Hollywood then cutting all his action down to shreds and giving him bland projects destined to misfire (Paycheck, Windtalkers). Why hire John Woo when you can hire John Smith? Jackie Chan and Jet Li also had a tough time breaking into the US market initially. When The Matrix came along at the tail end of the decade/century/millennium and incorporated Hong Kong style action into the fight scenes a barrage of lesser directors were all of a sudden copying their style, even when it wasn't completely necessary or appropriate. Your training, Matrix!
Since the noughties action movies have leaned more and more towards overly stylized fight scenes that take me (and, I imagine, most audiences) further and further out of the moment with ever-escalating impossible physics and pointless camera trickery. Whatever happened to practical angles, editing, realistic one-on-one hand-to-hand combat? Most action movies now feature superheroes even if they are not based on comic books, and I don't find this entertaining at all.
Asian cinema is now following Hollywood's lead, and The Villainess (translated as "Wicked" from the original Korean title) over-indulges in hyper-stylized action that actually ends up hindering its effect and it never once feels believable or exciting.
Sook-hee is a deadly assassin who storms into a meth lab and massacres about 394,839,483,948,394,839 people in the space of five minutes. Initially this is done from a first-person POV though the camera steps to the side when she gets her head bashed against a mirror. It was an interesting twist for a few minutes. She's promptly arrested and whisked away to a secret compound operated by a shady organization to refine her skills and make her into an even deadlier assassin. This is the E-X-A-C-T plot that was played out in Nikita in 1990, which was then remade itself in 1993 as The Point of No Return, and then again as it's own TV show. By extension you could say that Columbiana is also a remake. And the more recent shortening of that very title Anna is basically the same premise rehashed yet again. Is Luc Besson a one-trick pony or what? Further to this there is also Atomic Blonde, another movie where a tough female takes on hordes of men and comes out the victor thanks to impossible physics.
Let me share with a few quotes on men fighting women from UFC personalities:
"I've never felt so overpowered ever in my life." - Tamikka Brents
"Bone structure is different, hands are bigger, jaw is bigger, everything is bigger." UFC President Dana White
"You look at a man's hands and you look at a woman's hands and they're built different. They're just thicker, they're stronger, your wrists are thicker, your elbows are thicker, your joints are thicker. Just the mechanical function of punching, a man can do it much harder than a woman can, period." - Joe Rogan
Can some women beat-up some men? Sure. Women CAN be tough. Can a dainty Asian chick that weighs less than the clothes she is wearing massacre half of Korea after skipping lunch?
No!
If you are willing to suspend your disbelieve you'll still be let down by the muddled plot which tries to come full circle by tying in the climax of events to the beginning of the movie but instead ties itself in knots with convoluted, confusing flashbacks and an annoying lack of clarity. Half of the blood effects are practical and pleasing, but the other half is really poorly done CGI and there is a lot of noticeable green screen work that takes you out of the moment even more.
If they scaled back the ambition and focused on developing the story and characters then this could have been a much better movie. As it is it's hard to follow and mind-numbing. There's better Asian action movies out there. I don't know what they were smoking at the Cannes Film Festival when this got a four-minute standing ovation.
Since the noughties action movies have leaned more and more towards overly stylized fight scenes that take me (and, I imagine, most audiences) further and further out of the moment with ever-escalating impossible physics and pointless camera trickery. Whatever happened to practical angles, editing, realistic one-on-one hand-to-hand combat? Most action movies now feature superheroes even if they are not based on comic books, and I don't find this entertaining at all.
Asian cinema is now following Hollywood's lead, and The Villainess (translated as "Wicked" from the original Korean title) over-indulges in hyper-stylized action that actually ends up hindering its effect and it never once feels believable or exciting.
Sook-hee is a deadly assassin who storms into a meth lab and massacres about 394,839,483,948,394,839 people in the space of five minutes. Initially this is done from a first-person POV though the camera steps to the side when she gets her head bashed against a mirror. It was an interesting twist for a few minutes. She's promptly arrested and whisked away to a secret compound operated by a shady organization to refine her skills and make her into an even deadlier assassin. This is the E-X-A-C-T plot that was played out in Nikita in 1990, which was then remade itself in 1993 as The Point of No Return, and then again as it's own TV show. By extension you could say that Columbiana is also a remake. And the more recent shortening of that very title Anna is basically the same premise rehashed yet again. Is Luc Besson a one-trick pony or what? Further to this there is also Atomic Blonde, another movie where a tough female takes on hordes of men and comes out the victor thanks to impossible physics.
Let me share with a few quotes on men fighting women from UFC personalities:
"I've never felt so overpowered ever in my life." - Tamikka Brents
"Bone structure is different, hands are bigger, jaw is bigger, everything is bigger." UFC President Dana White
"You look at a man's hands and you look at a woman's hands and they're built different. They're just thicker, they're stronger, your wrists are thicker, your elbows are thicker, your joints are thicker. Just the mechanical function of punching, a man can do it much harder than a woman can, period." - Joe Rogan
Can some women beat-up some men? Sure. Women CAN be tough. Can a dainty Asian chick that weighs less than the clothes she is wearing massacre half of Korea after skipping lunch?
No!
If you are willing to suspend your disbelieve you'll still be let down by the muddled plot which tries to come full circle by tying in the climax of events to the beginning of the movie but instead ties itself in knots with convoluted, confusing flashbacks and an annoying lack of clarity. Half of the blood effects are practical and pleasing, but the other half is really poorly done CGI and there is a lot of noticeable green screen work that takes you out of the moment even more.
If they scaled back the ambition and focused on developing the story and characters then this could have been a much better movie. As it is it's hard to follow and mind-numbing. There's better Asian action movies out there. I don't know what they were smoking at the Cannes Film Festival when this got a four-minute standing ovation.