Old, but not dead.
An old woman who is an assassin is getting really old. Her mission in life is to kill bad people who do not deserve to live, and she is about to retire soon because her body is worn out. Then a new assassin starts working for her company, and it turns out they have a connection, but she does not remember what that connection is. During a mission, the protagonist gets hurt, and she is saved by a veterinarian who has a young daughter, and because of that, the protagonist will put these two lives in danger because of the new assassin.
The Old Woman with the Knife is an entertaining movie, and I liked the protagonist, especially her outfit, where she walks around looking mysterious, and she really stands out in the crowd. So I liked her style, but she is a psycho killer.
When it comes to character depth, there is not much here to speak of. We see some scenes from the past with the protagonist and how she became an assassin, but it is only for a few minutes. So we never get to know her, except that we see she is a psycho who loves killing, and she does not have a life besides killing people. But she is kind to a dog, and there is a scene towards the end that I did not quite understand with the dog and what happened to the dog. That irritated me because I did not feel that the dog arc was satisfying.
The action scenes are okay, but you must remember that the protagonist is an old hag, and to be honest, she is a little weak because she gets in a lot of trouble, so it does not feel realistic that she would survive for as long as she does in this movie. But she is an old hag, and old hags always have a surprise up their sleeve and some lotion in their bag.
What I was not a fan of was the last ten minutes of the movie when the showdown takes place, and we finally get the answer to why the antagonist wants to kill the old hag. It was just too cheesy and a perfect example of poor script writing. I was embarrassed because of his motive.
Up until then, the story worked with the mystery and the pressure the antagonist used against the protagonist, who is the innocent veterinarian and his daughter. But The Old Woman with the Knife just had to force in some really bad melodrama when it should not have. Welcome to South Korea.
The Old Woman with the Knife is worth watching if you like these South Korean assassin movies because the protagonist is an interesting and broken character. The cinematography is also good, and the atmosphere is there, which means it smells of death and a dark ending. But do we get that dark ending? Well, that is something you have to see for yourself.