[6][7] Sook-hee, a highly skilled assassin, enters a building and kills numerous people before jumping out a window and being surrounded by cops.

South Korea's intelligence agency reviews footage of her attack, and on chief Kwon-sook's suggestion select her for recruitment as an asset.

Sook-Hee wakes up confined to an institution which provides her with plastic surgery, fakes her death, assigns her the new identity of Yeon-soo, and trains her and other women in physical and social skills.

After exceeding her fellow trainees in combat skill, she's assigned her first assassination, in which she kills her target accidentally in front of his daughter and barely escapes.

Past: A 7 year old Sook-Hee witnesses her father's death but does not get a look at the killer's face; she only hears a whistled tune.

Aiming her rifle out a window, Yeon-soo recognizes her target as Joong-sang and, under emotional distress, misses her shot.

Meanwhile, Yeon-soo defends Hyun-soo's failing towards Kwon-sook and starts digging into her target's identity, eventually realizing him to be her ex-husband.

About to reach home, Yeon-soo suddenly sees her apartment explode and Hyun-soo holding Eun-hye being blown out the window onto the street.

Kwon-sook shows her video recordings of her apartment, revealing Joong-sang's gang to be the murderers, even having deliberately waited for her arrival before triggering the bomb.

Yeon-soo chases after them, boards the bus, crashes it and, badly wounded, holds an axe over Joong-sang's head.

[8] Later it was sold to additional territories which includes Japan, China, Singapore, India increasing to a total of 136 countries worldwide.

The site's critical consensus reads, "The Villainess offers enough pure kinetic thrills to satisfy genre enthusiasts -- and carve out a bloody niche for itself in modern Korean action cinema.

[13] In July 2021, it was announced a TV series based on the film is in development with Amazon with writer Francisca Hu writing and executive producing the pilot.