Actor Lee Hye-young blasts way through action glass ceiling with 'The Old Woman with the Knife'

Home > Entertainment > Movies

Actor Lee Hye-young blasts way through action glass ceiling with 'The Old Woman with the Knife'

Published: 07 May. 2025, 16:43 Updated: 08 May. 2025, 10:26

KIM JI-YE
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Still from thriller film ″The Old Woman with the Knife″ [NEW]

Seeing women steal the show in Korean films is becoming a more common sight, and actor Lee Hye-young, who played a contract killer in her 60s in the recent Berlinale-invited film "The Old Woman with the Knife," pushes the boundaries of what’s possible for a female protagonist on screen.

For screen veteran Lee, who has witnessed the industry’s tides for over 40 years, the female narrative shift is unmistakable, she said in an interview with local reporters on April 28.

“Back when I first started acting, female roles — female actors, really — mostly existed in relation to male characters, usually as their love interest or the object of desire in a romance,” Lee said during the interview. “Other than that, women played comedic characters, strong-willed types or ghosts.”

“But these days — and it's been this way for quite a while now — we're seeing more and more independent female characters, not just as someone defined by their relationship to men.”

The Berlinale-invited thriller, released on April 30, centers on a veteran contract killer in her 60s who operates under the name Hornclaw. While she continues her work, a promising young killer named Bullfight approaches her with hidden motives tied to their shared past.

Based on the popular 2013 Korean novel “Pagwa” by Gu Byeong-mo, the film was directed by Min Kyu-dong and features Lee as Hornclaw and Kim Sung-cheol as Bullfight.

Packed with action scenes, from Hornclaw striking a full-grown man and scaling walls to firing gunshots while sliding down a rope and even tumbling on the ground in a fight against Bullfight, the film offers a rare portrayal of an aging, silver-haired woman at the center of intense physicality.

It was the strength of the character, Lee said during the interview, that compelled her to take on what she calls this physically exhausting role.

Actor Lee Hye-young from thriller film ″The Old Woman with the Knife″ [NEW, SOO FILM]

Earning every shot

Playing a skilled contract killer at the age of 62 is not an easy task to pull off — especially when the character must stay constantly alert, ready to fight anyone, anytime, anywhere.

Though Lee had some action experience in director Ryoo Seung-wan’s 2002 film “No Blood No Tears,” she admitted that “every part of it was hard.

“If my stunt double rolls five times, I had to at least roll three, because the emotions had to match,” Lee said.

Despite a background in action, the actor stressed that this film was far more intense and demanding, particularly because her character had to suppress all emotions and maintain a steely expression.

“My character had to stay cool — no dramatic reactions, no showing pain even when it really hurt,” she said. “Even when putting in strength or effort, everything had to be done quietly with control. That, honestly, was the hardest part.”

Though the actor said the scenes were challenging, she managed to carry them out seamlessly, especially one of the film’s standout moments, where she flies down a rope.

In the scene, the actor slides down through the center of a circular building while firing a gun — an intense sequence that would be physically demanding even for younger actors.

Lee pointed to that moment as “the most difficult to shoot.” But she added that it wasn’t just the high-stakes action that was tough, and that even taking hits and falling down was grueling, at one point leading to a broken rib.

“We had exactly three or four days to shoot a scene in Itaewon, so we had to finish within that time. But the very first day of filming, I injured my rib as I hit the sink [while shooting]. But I pushed through and kept shooting anyway."

Still from film ″Samjin Company English Class″ (2020) [LOTTE ENTERTAINMENT]

More room for growth

Characters like Lee’s — bold, complex and far from the emotion-driven, passive female archetypes in film — were rarely seen in Korean cinema until recently. In earlier films and dramas, women were often portrayed solely as the love interests of male leads, often waiting for their “prince charming” or true love. When they weren't framed romantically, they were frequently pitted against one another, reinforcing the women-against-women narrative.

These female-led narratives, once considered uninteresting and risky to tackle in the film industry, are now proving that audiences are not only engaged but eager for such stories.

For example, “Samjin Company English Class” (2020) followed three women exposing corporate corruption and logged 1.57 million ticket admissions despite its release during the Covid-19 pandemic. The crime film “Smugglers” (2023), led by Kim Hye-soo and Yum Jung-ah, drew over 5 million viewers with its portrayal of female divers turned smugglers in a genre traditionally dominated by men.

Despite such progress, however, challenges remain.

The Korean Film Council (Kofic) conducted a “female stereotype test” among the 27 Korean films in the top 30 box office in 2024 to find how female characters are portrayed — whether they are depicted in a more complex manner, independent of male counterparts, or if they follow traditional, stereotypical portrayals of women.

Still from film ″Smugglers″ (2023) [NEW]

The test consists of seven criteria identifying roles where women appear as passive victims, token characters or are assigned caregiving duties without narrative justification. If a film meets even one of these criteria, it is considered to contain a stereotyped female character.

Of the films, 44.4 percent were found to feature stereotypical female characters — only a slight drop from the highest figure of 44.8 percent the previous year.

In fact, the percentage of films featuring stereotypical roles has been rising for two consecutive years from 2022 to 2023, reversing a decline that fell to 7.1 percent in 2021.

The council pointed out in the report that assigning women token or sidekick roles remains the “most common way” Korean commercial films reproduce female stereotypes.

“Female characters are not entirely excluded from male-dominated worlds, but they often remain in passive roles — lacking depth or the ability to exert meaningful influence,” Kofic said in its report.

The test result reveals that while the quantity of female roles in Korea may be rising, the quality remains lacking.

“It is true that the initial quantitative growth of female representation is a welcome development,” the council noted. “However, this also highlights the need to take a step further, toward enhancing the quality and originality of how female characters are portrayed.”

BY KIM JI-YE [[email protected]]