The Old Woman With The Knife [Movie Review]

The Old Woman With The Knife [Movie Review] | I stumbled upon the movie while browsing online and the title immediately caught my attention.

For a moment, I genuinely wondered: was this about a chef? A butcher?

Turns out, it’s something far sharper than that.

SYNOPSIS

The Old Woman With The Knife (2025) Trivia

• Hangul: 파과
• Starring: Lee Hye-young & Kim Sung-cheol
• Director: Min Kyu-dong
• Producer: Min Jin-soo
• Production Company: Soo Film
• Distributed by: Next Entertainment World & M-Line Distribution
• Release date: April 30, 2025
• Running time: 133 minutes
• Rating: MA
• Country: South Korea
• Language: Korean
• IMDb: 6.0/ 10
• Tomatometer: 92%
• Metascore: NA
• Based on the novel Pagwa by Ku Byung-Mo. 
• Hornclaw’s hairpin weapon contrasts her age and appearance with quiet, lethal efficiency, proving danger doesn’t always look threatening.

Back 1975, Hornclaw was a street urchin taken in by a gentle couple who ran a modest diner. She washed dishes, wiped tables and learned early that survival often depended on silence and endurance. That fragile sense of safety shattered the night a US soldier assaulted her. She killed him in self-defence. 

Ji-wo, the diner owner, discovered what happened and chose not to turn her in. Instead, he revealed the truth about himself: an assassin working for a clandestine organisation disguised as a pest control company, eliminating those they deemed societal 'vermin'. He covered up her crime and trained her, shaping her into a weapon with a moral compass. She became Nail. 

Ji-wo's enemies slaughtered his wife and child. Though he took many with him, he fell to overwhelming numbers. Hornclaw arrived too late, finishing what he started. Standing amid the aftermath, she learned the most painful lesson of all: attachments get you killed.

Decades later, Hornclaw is in her mid-sixties and legendary. Her name carries weight, her presence silence. She kills quietly, often with a poisoned hairpin and she does it better than anyone else. Yet the organisation she serves no longer resembles the ethical machine Ji-wo believed in. It now feels like a blunt assassin-for-hire syndicate, stripped of principle. Worse, Hornclaw herself may be changing. Her hand wavers. Her emotion gives in when she adopts a scruffy old rescue dog. She is no longer the heartless and cold Hornclaw.

Then Bullfight appears. Young, vicious and disturbingly familiar, he pushes his way into her orbit, forcing a partnership she never asked for. Hornclaw senses something off but fails to recognise the past binding them together. As they circle each other, their shared violence and unspoken history twist into something personal, volatile and inevitable.

At the same time, Hornclaw lets her guard down just enough to allow Dr Kang into her life. After a job goes wrong, he stitches her back together. A widowed vet with an almost absurd kindness and a relentlessly cheerful daughter, Kang represents everything Hornclaw has spent a lifetime avoiding. Painkillers soften her edges. Humanity creeps back in. And in her world, that makes Kang and his child dangerous liabilities.

Why does Bullfight feel so disturbingly familiar? And when survival demands a choice, will Hornclaw eliminate her liabilities or finally choose to keep them?

MY REVIEW

What I Like:  

• An old aged and seasoned assassin? I love the concept! 
• Beautiful delivery by the cast.

What I Don't Like:

• Too many characters that confuses the focus and some are underdeveloped.

Will I Watch It Again: Sure, I would.

Overall: 4.4/ 5.0

The pictures are taken from multiple sources on the Internet. Thank you.

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