Film: The Villainess

It's difficult to say whether The Villainess's incoherence is its favour or to its disadvantage. On the one hand, the layers upon layers (upon layers) adds a certain, albeit implausible, depth that will keep you engaged throughout. On the other hand it does make the film a bit of hard work, and not really something to enjoy if you wanted an easy time.

That said, the best way to enjoy the film is to just lie back and let it wash over you - it does a decent job of leading you through its maze, even if it does take a while to understand the storyteller's language. The wonky subtitles didn't help, and neither did my shameful inability to tell some of the actors apart (I'm happy to say that by the end of the film I had warmed up enough for this not to be a problem). Still, I'm not afraid to admit that the film was much more clever than I was, and again I'm not sure if I enjoyed it more or less because of that.

The film has action, comedy and, oddly enough, romance - there were times when I thought I was watching a South Korean soap for instance. The camera work is adventurous if not a little too experimental; I can't say that the film managed to pull all of it off, but these rough cuts added to the charm of the film rather than to its discredit.

So perhaps not a great film, but definitely one to check out. It's currently on very limited release here in the UK so chances are you'll have missed it if you haven't seen it already - but you're probably better off watching with pause and rewind buttons in hand anyway.