A Blade and a Legacy: The Old Woman with the Knife Cuts Deep - Review

Lee Hye-young proves age is no weakness in South Korea’s latest slow-burning action thriller.

There’s something beautifully subversive about watching a woman in her sixties slice through wave after wave of would-be killers—and not in a campy or exaggerated way, but in a meditative, bloody, and often brutal march toward resolution. That’s what director Kyu-dong Min delivers in The Old Woman with the Knife, known in South Korea as Pagwa, a word referencing bruised fruit—discarded, underestimated, but sometimes the sweetest and, in this case, the deadliest.

Set against the backdrop of Seoul’s shadowy underworld, the film follows Horn Claw (a phenomenal Lee Hye-yeong), a legendary assassin nearing retirement, wrestling with both her aging body and a haunted past. Her life of violence, obedience, and emotional suppression is starting to catch up with her. But if she’s slowing down, she hasn’t lost her edge. And she’ll need every bit of it once a younger, brasher killer named Bullfight (Kim Sung-cheol) comes gunning for the old guard.

There’s nothing sleek or overly stylized here. The Old Woman with the Knife treats age not as a weakness but as a reality—and a weapon. Horn Claw doesn’t dodge bullets in slow motion. She limps, hides, bleeds. Her knife hand trembles, but it still finds its mark. The action, though sparse compared to something like The Raid, is grounded and vicious. You feel every blow. And it’s that believability that makes her both tragic and badass.

The film leans into emotional resonance more than nonstop adrenaline. We see Horn Claw’s past in vivid flashes—her training, her kills, the loss of her mentor Ryu (Kim Mu-yul)—and how each left a scar. Kyu-dong Min masterfully weaves together this psychological weight with the film’s central confrontation between old school pragmatism and the chaotic hunger of the next generation. Bullfight is quick, savage, and reckless—everything Horn Claw no longer has the luxury of being. Watching them collide is like watching two tectonic plates shift toward inevitable disaster.

What may polarize audiences is the film’s pacing. At a full two hours, it asks patience from viewers expecting a more conventional thriller. The film moves with the deliberateness of its main character, and while some moments linger longer than necessary, the payoff lands—especially if you appreciate nuance over spectacle.

American audiences are used to aging men leading action franchises—Liam Neeson, Denzel Washington, Tom Cruise—but rarely do we see an older woman, especially a Korean woman, occupy that same cinematic space. And that’s part of what makes The Old Woman with the Knife feel vital. It dares to ask: What if the most dangerous person in the room was the one everyone ignored?

For fans of character-driven crime thrillers with sharp commentary on mortality, legacy, and gender, this is one to watch. Lee Hye-young delivers a performance that’s as cutting as the weapon her character wields, and the story—adapted from Gu Byeong-mo’s novel—offers more than just blood and blades. It’s a slow-burning reckoning.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The Old Woman with the Knife opens in U.S. theaters May 16 via Well Go USA.

Directed by Min Kyu-dong

Starring

Lee Hye-young

Kim Sung-cheol

Yeon Woo-jin

Kim Moo-yul