“Old people really do a lot of work.”

Josh’s rating: I sometimes use review writing to make embarrassing admissions to an unwitting audience, so what’s one more?

Josh’s review: Recently I’ve been attracted to learning about and consuming Korean culture and content. It started with Physical 100, a competition show on Netflix, and has now settled on reality dating shows. I just can’t help it. The biggest difference between Korean reality shows and American is the amount of respect the contestants show each other. I just love the way they will go out of their way to behave with civility, even addressing someone who may only be a few months older than themselves with the appropriate honorific.

When I saw a preview for The Old Woman with the Knife, I thought, “How will they show this old woman the proper respect?” They don’t! And that’s the problem.

Hornclaw is an old school assassin who lives by the code of the company that she helped build: Make the world a better place by taking out the vermin that prey on the weak. Bullfight is a young, brash, sadistic, up-and-comer looking to make a name for himself in the contract killer world. When Hornclaw starts to get in the way of the young owner’s vision for the company, he teams up with Bullfight to take out the old and bring in the new.

The Old Woman with the Knife is a Korean thriller based on the novel “Pagwa” by Gu Byeong-mo and is directed by Kyu-Dong Min. It’s a dark and satisfying movie about revenge, redemption, and coming to terms with getting old… in a very violent way.

Kyu-Dong Min does a good job keeping the plot moving for the 133 minute runtime through the use of flashback and furious action sequences which are decently choreographed. Despite those action scenes being brutal and flowing well, action fans won’t find anything new here and may find their thoughts drifting to the hallway hammer fight in another blood-soaked Korean film.

There’s a liberal amount of blood here as there’s a focus on knife fighting like the title implies, but some of it is noticeably computer generated. That’s not to say the practical effects aren’t on point when they are in use. Another aspect of the fights that lend it a bit more realism are the times when combatants get winded or a shot really takes it out of them for a moment. Those add a nice touch.

Kim Sung-cheol as Bullfight and Lee Hye-yeong as Hornclaw are fun to watch play off each other. One is cool and collected, the other young and arrogant. As the movie unfolds and we get more pieces of the puzzle, Bullfight’s behavior becomes more understandable if not justifiable. Their fight scenes, especially the climactic knife fight at the end, are brutal. The younger man doesn’t consider age a reason to pull punches. It looks like Kim Sung-cheol is making the transition into film and hopefully has a long career in front of him while Lee Hye-yeong is proving some actors just get better with age. Kim Mu-yeol is captivating whenever he is on the screen as Ryu, the man who brings Hornclaw into the business. It’s a shame his character isn’t in more of the film. I am a sucker for the strong silent type.

There are many similarities to John Wick, which itself built on previous properties. The main character is a legend in their organization, gets the hell beat out of them throughout, there is a club scene, the body count is high, and to cap it all off, there’s a dog who doesn’t make it to the end. The whole affair isn’t exactly original and the filmmakers try to spice it up by playing with narrative hopscotch. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind seeing a cut where they “remix” it to flow more linearly.

Every time I watch a new Korean movie, I find more movies to explore and actors I want to see in other roles. This one has definitely given me another handful of titles to check out. I’ll be watching movies on the day I die and still won’t have gotten through them all.

The Old Woman with the Knife is a solid crime thriller cat and mouse film with plenty of knife and gun play. It’s a bloody exploration of finding purpose and redemption even when it seem like it’s too late. I’d give this one a 3.5 out of 5.

Intermission!

• Damn, that car didn’t stop for this woman?
• “This is a hamburger.”
• Why is there no fitted sheet on this bed?!
• Hell yes, finally someone paying the price for elder abuse.
• Lemme just pull over real quick and staple up my back.
• “Don’t use a canon to kill a sparrow.”
• I feel like burying someone alive would be difficult if they weren’t bound or unconscious. Couldn’t you just keep crawling above the added dirt?
• What is it with assassins and dog trauma?