‘Furies’ (2022) & ‘Kill Boksoon’ (2023): Girls with Guns

Directed by: Veronica Ngo [1], Byun Sung-hyun [2] || Produced by: Giang Ho, Bey Logan, Veronica Ngo [1],Yi Jin-hee [2]

Screenplay by: Nha Uyen Ly Nguyen, Veronica Ngo. Nguyen Truong [1], Byun Sung-hyun [2] || Starring: Veronica Ngo, Đồng Ánh Quỳnh, Tóc Tiên, Rima Thanh Vy, Thuận Nguyễn, Song Luân [1], Jeon Do-yeon, Sol Kyung-gu, Kim Si-a, Lee Jae-wook, Lee So-young, Koo Kyo-hwan [2]

Music by: Phuong Thanh, Tóc Tiên, Dan Truong [1],  Lee Jin-hee, Kim Hong-jip [2] || Cinematography: Phunam Thuc Ha [1], Cho Hyung-rae [2] || Edited by: Nguyen Cong Dang [1], Kim Sang-bum [2] || Country: Vietnam [1], South Korea [2] || Language: Vietnamese [1], Korean [2]

Running Time: 109 minutes [1], 137 minutes [2] || 1 = Furies, 2 = Kill Boksoon

If you’ve spent significant time exploring the action genre of film, chances are you’ve come across entries that may fit within the “girls with guns” subgenre; that subgenre’s premise involves most of the same tropes, gimmicks, storytelling formulas, and cinematographic techniques common to most actions films, whether the kung fu, wuxia, or gun-fu of Chinese cinema, the spy thriller, creature-feature, or shoot-’em-ups of Hollywood, or the samurai-western (chanbara), yakuza, or anime thrillers of Japanese filmmaking, just with… you know, a girl as the top-billed star. Action films with heavily armed female protagonists are almost identical to their far more prolific male-led counterparts to the point where these action heroines feel like gimmicks; these female lead characters and their arcs, on average, feel indistinguishable from a generic Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger archetype thanks to (1) general screenwriter laziness and (2) most of their writer-directors being male.

This skewed — some would say unfair — dynamic within the action genre explains why, at least anecdotally, girls-with-guns (henceforth, G&G) flicks appear to be niche affairs amongst female audiences, including cinephiles, compared to more gender nuanced film genres like true crime thrillers and romantic dramas. Unlike those latter types of projects, the target demographics for G&G films are primarily male regardless of how much filmmakers push the sex appeal of their leads (think the Tomb Raider (1996-)-effect).

Top: Lead Jeon Do-yeon compares her consumer-grade hatchet to the centuries’ old wakizashi used by her yakuza target, Hwang Jung-min (not pictured) in Kill Boksoon’s fun prologue. Bottom: A relationship that feels severely underused in Booksoon is that between Jeon and her assassin’s guild’s “star intern,” Lee Yeon (left).

Two recent examples of the G&G action formula outside of Hollywood include Veronica Ngo’s (also known as Ngô Thanh Vân, or NTV) Furies (Vietnamese = “Thanh Sói – Cúc dại trong đêm” or Thanh Wolf – Wild Daisies in the Night), the 2022 prequel/spinoff to Le-Van Kiet’s Furie (2019; Vietnamese = “Hai Phượng,” named after Veronica Ngo’s lead character), which focuses on the origin story of the 2019 film’s antagonist, and Byun Sung-hyun’s Kill Boksoon. Kiet has directed several films since his 2012 debut with House in the Alley, two of which have been denied release in his native Vietnam, but is perhaps most well known Stateside as the man behind the Hulu period action-comedy, The Princess (2022), starring The Kissing Booth’s (2018, 2020, 2021) Joey King. Byun has directed four movies thus far across a range of genres, from romantic comedies to gritty crime dramas, and Boksoon is perhaps his weirdest blend of formulas thus far.

Let’s tackle Furies to start: While I appreciate the feminine artistic perspective that actor, co-writer, and director Ngo brings to this story, the tonal whiplash between Furies‘ gross, ultra-serious commentary on sex-trafficking in Southeast Asia and its colorful, quirky, melodramatic fight sequences leaves much to be desired. The opening depictions of lead Đồng Ánh Quỳnh living with a single mother forced to prostitute herself to survive, which includes a graphic child rape, felt more appropriate for a Vietnam War movie or a heavyhanded documentary about international human rights abuses than a balls-to-the-wall action flick. Those narrative transitions are like if Extraction (2020) segued from its long-take fisticuffs into multiple scenes from Slumdog Millionaire (2008) or if Skyfall (2012) took a detour into Munich (2005); some films can pull off that extreme tonal balancing act (e.g. Rambo [2008]), but they’re the exception, not the rule. There’s one memorable sequence where Ngo melds these opposite styles well, however, where Quỳnh attacks costar Tóc Tiên in a fit of post-traumatic rage related to her sexual assault in the first act.

Looking beyond the oil-and-water mixture of Ngo’s story, her action filmmaking courtesy of choreographer Samuel Kefi Abrikh and cinematographer Phunam Thuc Ha is inconsistent at best. Obvious shutter-speed manipulation and wacky camera movements disguise unconvincing fight moves in numerous scenes, while an elongated motorbike chase sequence produces unintentional comedy from its obvious green-screen FX and lazy computer generated stunt doubles. Admittedly, the third act improves on the previous two once our main castmembers grab ahold of some firearms and a memorable twist reveals a secret main villain, but that’s after nearly 80 minutes of inconsistent, muddled action led by forgettable characters.

Somewhere in between the convoluted tone of Furies and the silly yet engrossing mythology of John Wick (2014–2023) sits Kill Boksoon, so named after the in-universe pun of its lead character’s (Jeon Do-yeon) name, Gil Boksoon. Kill Boksoon envisions a formalized, conspiratorial underworld of assassins controlled by a byzantine bureaucracy a la Wick, where the complicated regulations over who kills whom when, where, and how are as important as the cinematic stylization of the kills themselves. Boksoon adds a further wrinkle — the heart of its script, in truth —  by having its title character be a single mother raising an angsty teenaged daughter (Kim Si-a) with a secret of her own (three guesses what it is!).

The stylized camerawork and characterizations are stronger here than in Furies, utilizing the G&G trope more tastefully such that it feels less like a gimmick and more like an integral part of the movie’s character development. The action choreography is strong while the dramatic chemistry between Jeon and Kim work, but several problems interfere with this rosy picture: (1) The political maneuvering of the assassin’s guild receives way more screentime than the ostensible crux of Jeon’s character arc (her daughter Kim) and feels like what writer-director Byun really cared about; (2) these parallel storylines feel like they belong in separate movies even if they’re better executed than in, say, Furies; and (3) the film runs way too long (137 minutes).

Đồng Ánh Quỳnh (left) and Tóc Tiên (right) make up 2/3 of the titular “furies” in Netflix’s latest Vietnamese exclusive.

Whether you believe that the “girls with guns” flavor of action films has matured in recent decades may depend on your tolerance for stylized violence on film as well as your interest in gender politics in genres typically geared toward male audiences. Veronica Ngo’s Furies and Byun Sung-hyun’s Kill Boksoon are interesting recent examples of how the trope works in the modern age, but as is the case with pretty much everything in filmmaking, how much these work for most audiences, I argue, comes down to execution.

—————————————————–

SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATION: Furies attempts to elevate its schlocky material by incorporating extremely dark, explicit sequences of sexual violence and the residual trauma that haunts its victims, and to me that comes across as in poor taste; it’s inconsistent action set-pieces almost feel beside the point in comparison. Kill Boksoon, on the other hand, packs a punch with its intricate, fluid fight sequences, but dilutes its creative diegetic backdrop of shadowy, corporatized murderers for hire with a mother-daughter relationship that, while earnest, belongs in a different movie. 

—> Furies is NOT RECOMMENDED, while I’m ON THE FENCE with respect to Kill Boksoon.

? Alright, so, 30,000 Korean won equals about… $23.81? I think you could have splurged just a tiny bit more.