DHAHRAN: If you are keen to watch a sharp film about a 65-year-old Korean woman assassin, look no further than the aptly named “The Old Woman with the Knife.”
One of the most daring offerings at the recent 12th Saudi Film Festival in Dhahran, which had a special focus on Korean cinema, that late night showing certainly set the scene for viewers to leave into a dark night sky bathed in blood-tinged hope.
Directed and co-written by Min Kyu-dong, it stars the indelible Lee Hye-young, one of the most prominent South Korean actresses since the 1980s, now in her 60s and very much still in her prime.
The over two-hour film was adapted from the bestselling South Korean novel of the same name by award-winning author Gu Byeong-mo.
The visually stunning journey unfolds on a snowy Korean night in 1975.
A young woman, Hornclaw, is working at a local diner owned by a young couple. A US soldier finds her alone as she is cleaning up, and viciously attempts to assault her, but Hornclaw lets adrenaline take over.
After a terrific and terrifying tussle, she fatally stabs him in self-defense.
Caught red-handed by her employer, Ji-wo, Hornclaw begs him not to tell the authorities when he discovers the bloodied scene.
Instead of panicking, he calmly reveals himself to be an assassin in an underground organization masquerading as a pest control company dedicated to removing repulsive humans, such as the would-be-rapist she had killed.
What follows is a morally coded assassin drama that sees Hornclaw as an elegant 65-year-old woman with declining health, softened in her older age, which is so beautifully presented, juxtaposed with the bloodied scenes.
It is a tale as old as time itself — women seemingly become invisible as they get older, sinking into the background. But being dismissed or undetected is now an extra arsenal in her toolbox. And, as we find out, a deadly one.
