The Huntresses
Director: Park Jae-hyun
Year: 2014
Rating: 5.5
This is pretty goofy for much of its running
time though it being a Korean film it inevitably dives deep into melodrama
like a drowning man at some point. But I was in the mood for this silliness
though admittedly it begins to slightly wear out its welcome as time goes
on. The main pleasure for me was watching one of my favorite Korean film
actresses, Ha Ji-won, who I liked so much in The Phone, Sex is Zero, the
TV series Damo, Duelist and the ping pong film As One. She is part of a trio
of lovely female bounty hunters with Gang Yi-won and Son Ga-In who always
get their man. It being a period film circa 1600's this is even more farfetched
than it sounds.
But it is all fairly comical in nature
with highly exaggerated action scenes, modern inventions, disguises, deadly
yo-yo's, funny cute faces, hang gliders and wild chases until suddenly it
isn't. It moves into more serious territory when the Government asks them
to track down one of their agents who has top secret information and who
is being chased by enemies of the throne. It gets more complicated though
when Ha discovers that the man who killed her father years ago is behind
this and that the boy she loved as a young girl is his cruel assassin.
The action heats up and the comedy slows
down - though it is still there - and I began to think that this would have
actually been a much better film if it had been serious right from the get
go - three killer women having no mercy rather than pseudo Charlie's Angels.
Still watching Ha is never a chore and one of her co-mates, Son Ga-in, who
is a member of the girl band, Brown Eyed Girls, is quite easy on the
eye as well.
