The Old Woman with The Knife: Crone Power Celebrated in Geriatric Assassin Story
By Liz Braun
Rating: B
The gravitas Lee Hye-yeong brings to her role as an aging killer is the centrepiece of Korean action-thriller, The Old Woman with The Knife.
Called Hornclaw, the blade-wielding senior of the title is devoted to her work as a contract killer, invisible in the landscape — nobody looks at a woman her age — as she annihilates bad guys with quiet grace and skill.
The Old Woman with The Knife, directed by Kyu-dong Min, is a redemption tale, balletic kill-and-maim sequences notwithstanding. The story begins in the past, with a young Hornclaw (Shin Si-ah), homeless and starving, collapsing in the snow.
A good samaritan (Kim Mu-yeol) rescues her; he and his wife offer the young woman work and a place to live, and Hornclaw is forever devoted to them for saving her.
The man proves to be a vigilante, which contributes to Hornclaw’s future work as an assassin.
Flash forward across decades, and Hornclaw is now a woman in her 60s, still killing those who need killing. She dispatches a guy in the subway, takes out a murderous care worker, kills a colleague who has blundered a job. Hornclaw is unobtrusive and deadly.
She works for an agency known mostly for assassinating bad people who have escaped justice. She still submits her reports on paper, whereas her younger colleagues use the app — the drama and violence of the film are not without moments of black humour.
Hornclaw has spent her life being careful not to connect with anyone. Why she became so isolated is spelled out in flashbacks to her youth, a period of loss and tragedy. She continues to lead a solitary and unencumbered life, at least until she rescues an injured dog.
She connects with the vet (Yeon Woo-jin) who helps bring the dog back to good health, and that begins her slow return to the land of the living, emotionally speaking. Well, more or less — she still does not hesitate to poison, shoot or garrote as required.
Still, her new potential vulnerability is noticed by a brash young killer (Kim Sung-cheol) who has recently joined the agency. Hornclaw dislikes this newcomer and his showy, slasher killing methods; he is dangerous and disrespectful. Soon enough, it proves there is a connection between her and the young man from the past. An intriguing cat-and-mouse game of vengeance ensues.
Geriatric killers are nothing new at the movies — think of John Wick, Red or Taken — but The Old Woman with The Knife has a lot more than exhilarating action scenes going on. The way the elderly are regarded and treated underlies much of the storytelling, and there’s an emotional element that’s unexpected for the genre.
The film is based on the bestselling novel by Gu Byeong-mo. It premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival last February.
The Old Woman with The Knife. Directed by Kyu-dong Min, written by Gu Byeong-mo, Kim Dong-wan and Kyu-dong Min. Starring Lee Hey-yeong, Kim Sung-cheol, Kim Mu-yeol, and Yeon Woo-jin. In theatres May 16.