Berlinale 2025 Review: PA-GWA / THE OLD WOMAN WITH THE KNIFE, Assassin Finds Herself Targeted

Like Kill Boksoon and many other titles before it, Pa-gwa / The Old Woman with the Knife sticks an unlikely star into a John Wick-style universe. In this case it's Lee Hye-young, a veteran performer from South Korea recently seen on the screen in Hong Sang-soo's A Traveler's Needs.

Director and co-writer Min Kyu-dong's needlessly complicated script starts in 1975, as a starving woman collapses on a snowy city street.

Rescued by a couple who run the Cherry Bay Diner, the young woman is later assaulted by an American soldier. In trying to escape, she kills him. "You killed a bug, that's all," says Ryu, the diner owner.

Jump to the present, where "Hornclaw," as the woman is nicknamed, uses a poisoned knife to take out a man on a subway who had been threatening a passenger. Like Wick, Hornclaw is a top assassin for a shadowy killers' association, this one known as the Singseung Agency. Her crippled boss Sohn hands out what he calls "pest control" assignments, although Hornclaw is starting to worry that Singseung is just a murder-for-hire group.

On a mission to kill Shim, chairman of an evil corporation, Hornclaw is almost overwhelmed by Shim's guards. An assassin known as Bullfight suddenly arrives and rescues her.

After stapling her wounds closed at home, Hornclaw thinks back to her training at the Cherry Bay Diner. There Ryu warned her to avoid relationships, to "never make something to protect." Instead, Hornclaw forms a relationship with Dr. Kang (Yeon Woo-jin) and his little daughter.

Bullfight tries to push Hornclaw out of Singseung, only to be told that, "A blade may look old, but it gets the job done." Then Sohn orders Hornclaw to crush the skull of her next victim in front of its child.

Another set of flashbacks reveals that Bullfight was the son of an abusive dad assassinated by Hornclaw. She was supposed to kill the child as well, but relented. Bullfight grew up determined to get revenge against Hornclaw.

Captured by Shim's men, Hornclaw is buried alive in a pit of maggots, only to be rescued by Bullfight, who wants to kill her himself. Back and forth they go, mixing in with conflicting flashbacks, while the Singseung agency collapses in on itself.

Lee is an outstanding performer trapped in a role filled with contradictions. Like John Wick, she has a strict moral code, but it's one she bends or even forgets, depending on the scene. Wearing floor-length leather overcoats and color-coordinated bucket hats, she looks formidable. Whether her character would survive in any of her action scenes is extremely doubtful.

Called "grandmother" and "hag" by the other characters, Hornclaw nevertheless has skills which are miraculous, even by comic-book standards. Unfortunately, the stunts are shot poorly and edited into a jumble.

The dank warehouses, empty parking lots, moldy motel rooms have all become worn-out clichés of the genre by this point. So have the retro assassin headquarters, the secret weapons caches, the constant betrayals and double-crosses. Pa-gwa has nothing new to add, except Lee's remarkable performance.

The film enjoyed its world premiere at 2025 Berlinale.

Photo © SooFilm