Movie's ratings
The Old Woman with the Knife
(2025)Pagwa 1
| Country | |
| Spoken Language | korean, english |
| Runtime | 2 hr 2 min |
| Premiere: World | $50 306 April 25, 2025 |
| Premiere: USA | May 16, 2025 |
| Digital: World | November 25, 2025 |
| Production Companies | |
Description
An aging assassin with a knack for taking out society’s worst encounters a young protégé eager to learn the trade. As they form an unlikely bond, the veteran killer discovers fresh purpose in her twilight years of violence and routine.
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The film is based on the South Korean novel “The Old Woman with the Knife” (Korean: 파과, literally “Overripe Fruit”).
Author
Gu Byeong-mo is a South Korean novelist. In 파과, she blends crime fiction with a psychological portrait of aging, violence, and the idea of killing as a practiced craft.About the book (not the film)
The protagonist is an elderly contract killer who frames her work as a kind of social “pest control,” removing people she judges harmful. As her body slows and mistakes become more likely, her tightly controlled routine begins to fray. A younger man enters her orbit, drawn to her skills and reputation; their connection develops through a tense mix of apprenticeship, rivalry, and dependency. Much of the novel’s force comes from her interior life—memory, loneliness, the cost of violence, and the uneasy question of what purpose remains when life has narrowed to repetitive assignments.How closely the film matches the book
- Core alignment: based on the published synopsis, the adaptation appears to keep the novel’s central setup—an aging female assassin with a personal code, and an unusual bond with a younger would-be trainee.
- Likely shifts: screen versions of this kind of story often foreground external conflict and set-piece action, while the novel typically devotes more space to introspection, psychological texture, and gradual revelation of the protagonist’s past.
- What usually carries over: the main themes (aging, violence as “work,” isolation, moral ambiguity) and the veteran/young counterpart dynamic as the story’s engine.
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Friends comments and ratings
It’s not that I expected much from the 500th (maybe this year) Korean action movie about hired killers, but this one turned out really bad even for this overused genre. Everything is formulaic: a plot that’s been seen a hundred times, the fragility of the elderly main character, which could have been a gimmick if it hadn’t been switched on and off when necessary, even the cliched waltzes in the soundtrack for Korean cinema were annoying… When the villain’s story is revealed, you’ll laugh at the cringe with his ridiculous motivation. It’s not even schiz, it’s fucking nuts. And most importantly, the fights are extremely dull, staged without the slightest attempt to show imagination – not a single one will be remembered.
The main association for comparison is "Kill Poxun", which "The Old Woman" is very, very similar to, but at least twice as bad in everything. Accordingly, we also divide the rating by two.
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