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THE OLD WOMAN WITH THE KNIFE (PAGWA)

Producer: Min Jin-soo   Director: Min Kyu-dong   Screenplay: Min Kyu-dong and Kim Dong-wan   Cast: Lee Hye-young, Kim Sung-cheol, Yeon Woo-jin, Kim Moo-yul, Shin Sia, Kim Kang-woo, Yang Ju-mi, Yoon Chae-na and Mitch Craig   Distributor: Well Go USA

Grade: B

Movies about assassins-for-hire have become depressingly frequent, but Min Kyu-dong’s is better than most. Adapted from “Pagwa,” a 2013 novel by Gu Byeong-mo translated into English as “The Old Woman with the Knife” (2022) by Kim Chi-young, it mixes spectacular fight sequences with an intricately constructed, if ultimately rather simple, revenge plot.  It’s all set against the biography of an ageing hit-woman nearing the end of her career and challenged by a young colleague.

In some superficial respects that seems to suggest a gender-reversal cousin of Simon West’s “Old Guy” from earlier this year, in which Christoph Waltz played a hit-man being forced to help train an up-and-coming replacement (Cooper Hoffman).  But West’s picture was a jokey if violent piece in Guy Ritchie mode; Min’s film, while even more violent, is moody, dark, and, given its outlandish elements, extremely self-serious.  But it’s also engrossing despite its often funereal pacing and complicated structure.

Lee Hye-young is the legendary hit-woman variously nicknamed Nails, Hornclaw and the Godmother.  She was initiated into the business while, as a homeless young woman (Shin Sia), she was rescued from the streets by Ryu (Kim Moo-yul), a kindly shop owner who brought her into his “human pest extermination” business after she’d killed an American soldier (Mitch Craig) who tried to rape her.  A montage over the opening credits gives glimpses of her storied career in the trade.

Now in her sixties, Hornclaw works in an agency overseen by Sohn (Kim Kang-Woo), who, aided by his mousy secretary (Yang Ju-mi), runs the place according to the principles Ryu had established before his death (shown in a flamboyant flashback).  She’s committed to the ideals the place has long represented, like dealing with an older operative nicknamed Gadget who’s muffed an assignment by allowing him emotional distress to cloud his judgment.

What’s she’s not prepared for is the arrival of Bullfight (Kim Sung-cheol), a young assassin brought into the operation by Sohn after hearing of his prowess on the docks.  Bullfight has a sadistic streak—when tasked with bringing in a target’s ring, for example, he responds with an elegant box that turns out to contain all the man’s neatly severed fingers—and an intense interest in Hornclaw, a hostility that proves to be more than professional jealousy. 

In order to take her down, Bullfight uses Hornclaw’s sympathy for Dr. Kang (Yeon Woo-jin), a widower with a young daughter named Haeni (Yoon Chae-na).  Kang, a veterinarian who persuades Hornclaw to adopt a stray dog she’s brought in for treatment (he names the mutt Braveheart), has mounted a solitary protest for five years outside the hospital where his wife’s surgery was botched, demanding an apology.  Hornclaw is touched by his devotion, and when Bullfight threatens them, she intervenes, as he knew she would.  He taunts her as a pagwa, a bruised fruit that should be tossed out—a reference to some of the produce in the stand presided over by Kang’s mother-in-law.  Bullfight’s festering antagonism, the cause of which is gradually revealed, naturally culminates in a final face-off with Hornclaw, a prolonged affair involving a small army he’s hired. 

Some may complain that the structure Min imposes on the story, replete with flashbacks and conversations delivered very deliberately, makes a fairly simple story unnecessarily dense and complex.  But the elegance of the result is justification enough.  Lee Jae-wo‘s cinematography brings out the best in Bae Jung-yoon’s production design, with some magical shots set in falling snow, and together with Jeong Ji-eun’s editing not only gives a hazily melancholy feel to the flashbacks but visceral energy to the vivid action set-pieces; Kim Jin-seong’s atmospheric score adds to the plaintive tone.

The two leads, meanwhile, offer a fascinating contrast, both charismatic but in very different ways.  Lee Hye-young is unnervingly potent in her quiet intensity, while Kim Sung-cheol is febrile and volcanic.  They complement one another well.  The supporting cast are all fine, with Shin Sia particularly striking as the young “Nails,” her scenes with Kim Moo-yul’s Ryu especially effective.

“The Old Woman with the Knife” is good enough to make the tired professional assassin genre worth watching again, at least briefly.

Now Showing

FIGHT OR FLIGHT

Producers: Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, Chris Milburn and Tai Duncan  Director: James Madigan   Screenplay: Brooks McLaren and DJ Cotrona   Cast: Josh Hartnett, Charithra Chandran, Marko Zaror, Juju Chan Szeto,  Julian Kostov, Sanjeev Kohli, Declan Baxter, Hugh O’Donnell, Danny Ashok, Heather Choo, Claudia Heinz and Katee Sackhoff   Distributor: Vertical Entertainment

Grade: B-

A live-action cartoon that situates a wacked-out John Wickish plot aboard a passenger jet, “Fight or Flight” is grossly over-the-top but will serve as a comic action bloodbath for those who enjoy that sort of thing, especially since it’s energized by an utterly unhinged performance from Josh Hartnett, who boasts bleach-blond hair as well as a goofy grin and zero reluctance to look silly.

The movie begins with a slow-mo melee aboard the plane set to the strains of the Blue Danube—Kubrick, anyone?—which proves to be one of those flash-forwards movies are so fond of nowadays; we’ll get a lot more of the mayhem later.

For now we’re introduced to Lucas Reyes (Hartnett), a seedy ex-government agent who’s been living a thoroughly dissolute life in Bangkok after a mission gone bad.  Dressed in a horrible Hawaiian shirt, belting back bottle after bottle and on the run from dangerous debt collectors, he’s astonished to get a call from Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff), his former boss and squeeze, who offers him a job that can earn him professional rehabilitation and scads of money.  He’s to track down, and bring in, a super hacker known only as The Ghost, who’s just ripped off a Thai corporation but been wounded in the process.  Since the thief uses a cloaking device, even the security footage is just a blur, but intelligence has identified the flight that The Ghost is about to take out of the country.  Seeing a chance to escape his problems, Lucas hops aboard.

But word of The Ghost’s itinerary has gotten out, and there are parties who want the troublemaker terminated rather than brought in, and have offered bounties to that end.  So the plane is filled with snakes of a human sort—in Wickian terms, greedy hit-people.  Lucas gets his first taste of that when he’s seated beside Cayenne (funny Marko Zaror), a talkative, hyperactive guy who drugs him and then escorts him to the restroom for permanent disposal.  Groggy Lucas is himself surprised that he survives the encounter, which turns out to be but the first—though one of the best—of such potentially fatal meetings.  Another notable one has Lucas fighting while under the influence of psychedelics, which allows for director James Madigan and his team—production designer Mailara Santana Pomales, cinematographer Matt Flannery, editor Ben Mills, the stunt team and some animators—to go into full cartoon mode while a glassy-eyed, grinning Harnett and his opponents do hand-to-hand battle, though weapons like chainsaws are optional.  Composer Paul Saunderson adds to the visual wildness with his score, complemented at times by some raucous needle drops.

The Ghost’s identity is revealed fairly early on, but since it turns out that the hacker’s motivations are pure—unlikely those of the various powers aiming to snuff the thief out (and, as it happens, those who have given Lucas his mission)—their joint survival becomes imperative.  And in the process of staying alive, Lucas secures a few allies, including pretty flight attendant Isha (likable Charithra Chandran) and her nervous colleague Royce (Danny Ashok), as well as Master Lian (Juju Chan Szeto), who seems to be a serene eastern nun with martial arts credentials, and her two similarly skilled acolytes (Heather Choo and Claudia Heinz).

Dollops of very broad humor are to be found not only in Harnett’s wacky turn, but in asides provided by Sanjeev Kohli and Declan Baxter as the flabbergasted cockpit team and Hugh O’Donnell as a fussy flight attendant in first class.  Less engaging is the plot thread involving Sackhoff’s increasingly perturbed Brunt and Julian Kostov as her ambitious aide.  There’s also an obligatory MacGuffin in a “device” hidden on the plane, some sort of mini-computer everybody wants, that’s capable of decoding encrypted data and—as it turns out—even piloting an airplane.  It comes into play at the close, when an injured, woozy Reyes is informed by The Ghost that although they appear to have prevailed, there’s now a new threat to face—exasperating him and topping things off with not so much a suggestion of a sequel as a promise of one.

“Fight or Flight” is a completely bonkers addition to the John Wick everyone’s-a-hit-man genre, and it suffers from being essentially a one-joke, repetitive affair.  But Hartnett, a committed supporting cast and a raft of capable stunt people make what might have been a stiflingly claustrophobic trip more than bearable—if, of course, it’s the sort of comically violent journey you want to sign up for.