YMMV / The Villainess

• Cliché Storm: One of the main criticisms of the film.
• Complete Monster: Lee Joong-sang is the real villain of the film, and the one behind Sook-hee's life of suffering. Having murdered a man decades ago, Joong-sang took the man's daughter Sook-hee under his wing to turn into a weapon and groom into a lover, using her to kill people for his assassination business. When Sook-hee grows too attached to him, Joong-sang fakes his own death to drive her mad with rage and use her to slaughter a rival gang, planning for her to die in the process. Joong-sang later tracks down a surviving Sook-hee, ruins her relationship with her family, then brutally kills her husband and daughter. When her husband told Joong-sang the baby was his, Joong-sang cared so little that he offered her husband the chance to survive by stabbing the baby to death out of sheer cruelty. Joong-sang proclaims he did all of this to Sook-hee simply because he could, and uses the deaths of her family to goad her into killing Joong-sang as one last blow to her psyche.
• Cult Classic: Often considered a very underrated action flick with loads of cool action sequences and an intriguing Action Girl protagonist.
• Friendly Fandoms: With the John Wick fandom thanks to their similar premises of Roaring Rampage of Revenge by their eponymous deadly assassins, stylized yet impeccably choreographed action scenes, and this film's motorcycle chase sequence inspiring the one in the third movie.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Despite its positive reception at Cannes, it didn't go win over Korean audiences as they found it "you run-of-the-mill, average cliched action movie with melodramatic plot." However, it garnered positive reviews in the US and became somewhat a Cult Classic among action junkies. In fact, this is one of the reasons why the director's next movie will be his Hollywood debut.
• Tear Jerker: The deaths of Hyun-soo and, worst of all, Eun-hye.

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