Moms, wives, killers: Women pull the trigger in growing small screen trend

A killer craze is sweeping the small screen — and all of the killers are women.

The MBC series “A Bona fide Killer,” starring Kong Hyo-jin, has remained hot, buoyed by the popularity of the original webtoon of the same name, which has amassed 170 million views.

The finale, which aired on Sept. 12, recorded a nationwide average viewership rating of 10.7 percent, ranking No. 1 in its time slot — Friday and Saturday — across all channels. A specially scheduled behind-the-scenes episode also aired on Friday.

The popular Disney+ series “A Shop for Killers” (2024–) also recently returned for a second season, with female lead Kim Hye-jun evolving from the passive survivor of the first season into a killer who takes matters into her own hands. Shin Sae-kyeong and Youn Yuh-jung also played killers in the film “Hindsight” (2011), which has recently enjoyed a resurgence on Netflix 15 years after its release.

Is this trend a sign that the golden age of the female killer has arrived?

“Okay, shall we go?" is a line that Kong's Yoo Bo-na repeatedly languidly says before every "client meeting."

Bo-na is a department head in a sales team at Durumi Electronics. She carries herself with the confidence of a superwoman and working mother with 15 years of experience — except she is not heading out to sell consumer gadgets like electric fans. She is going to carry out an execution.

The company Bo-na returns to after three years of parental leave is actually a secret vigilante organization that eliminates heinous criminals who have escaped punishment. Bo-na is a legendary sniper known as Kingfisher who once earned public adoration by effortlessly eluding police and the media with her uncanny skills before abruptly disappearing.

One moment, she is a wife and mother who scrambles between her in-laws’ home and her child’s daycare. The next, she is a sniper who takes down a villain with a single shot.

Vigilante justice captivates viewers

The cathartic fantasy of “A Bona fide Killer” can be seen as following in the footsteps of “Teach You a Lesson,” a drama that generated a strong response after topping Netflix’s global rankings in the first half of the year.

The fictional Educational Rights Protection Bureau in “Teach You a Lesson” delivers explosive catharsis by using physical force to punish perpetrators based on real-life cases that exploit gaps in the judicial and education systems. Similarly, the operations carried out by Durumi Electronics’ Sales Team 3 satisfy viewers frustrated by the structural limitations of the real-life justice system.

What makes the protagonist a particularly interesting character is that the person carrying out the punishment looks like an ordinary working mother.

Action stories about housewives balancing family life with dangerous professions have already become a global trend. One prominent example is the popular Japanese drama “Caution, Hazardous Wife” (2017), which is set to receive a Korean remake starring Lee Hye-ri of Girl’s Day next year.

In the Japanese original, actor Haruka Ayase plays a former special agent-turned-housewife who takes down domestic abusers and vicious fraudsters tormenting women in her neighborhood. Its everyday, close-to-home action proved so popular that the series was also adapted into a film.

The British Netflix series “Black Doves” (2024) similarly gained popularity, with Keira Knightley playing a veteran spy who steals government secrets while living as the wife of the defense secretary and mother of twins. A second season is set to follow.

Female-killer stories, in fact, form a genre of their own. In noir films, the familiar formula has paired revenge against exploitative men with the cliché of motherhood.

In Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” (2003), perhaps the genre’s best-known example, what drives Black Mamba, played by Uma Thurman, is bloody revenge against an organization led by her former lover, who caused her to lose her unborn child. Director Jung Byung-gil’s “The Villainess” (2017), widely dubbed the Korean “Kill Bill,” similarly tells the story of Sook-hee, played by Kim Ok-vin, who is exploited as a killing machine by a man who betrays her and by state power that uses her child as leverage.

Violence by women in such films is clearly liberating, but that sense of liberation has traditionally depended on resentment toward men and a desperate struggle to reclaim violated motherhood.

The formula has changed somewhat on the small screen.

Director Byun Sung-hyun’s Netflix film “Kill Boksoon” (2023) showed that a female killer does not necessarily have to be a tragic warrior consumed by revenge.

Gil Bok-soon, played by Jeon Do-yeon, is simply a professional woman working within the hierarchy and performance pressures of a contract-killing company in an industry that serves as a metaphor for the capitalist system. Yet the “rules” worshipped by her boss Cha Min-kyu, played by Sul Kyung-gu, a father figure to Bok-soon, are ultimately overcome through the unconventional approaches she absorbs from her daughter and a younger female colleague. In that sense, the film still seeks catharsis through gender conflict and its resolution.

MBC’s “A Bona fide Killer” takes the formula a step further.

Kingfisher’s adversaries are not necessarily men, nor is her fight against an all-powerful authority or some greater evil represented through a battle between the sexes. While Bo-na has trauma from childhood abuse, her motivation goes beyond personal revenge.

Her driving force is a professional conviction that she can create a better and safer world by eliminating villains who commit heinous crimes, receive only light punishment and then walk free. Although all of her “clients” are men, the series features numerous physical confrontations between powerful women, and its final villain is a fellow female killer.

Bo-na’s relationships with the men around her are also notable.

Her husband Kwon Tae-sung, played by Jung Joon-won, falls in love with Bo-na without knowing that she once saved his life. Younger than his wife, he freely shows his affection, actively participates in housework and child care and dotes on both his daughter and his wife. He also serves as an emotional safety net for Bo-na, balancing the battered side of her identity as Kingfisher.

Her boss and colleagues are also dependable allies. The gender conflict and exploitation that once defined female-killer stories have been replaced by horizontal, cooperative relationships in which housework, child care and even professional convictions are shared.

Motherhood has evolved as well.

True to the show’s tagline about a working mother with the world’s deadliest job fighting to protect her work-life balance, Bo-na coolly juggles the destructive persona of a killer with the everyday role of a mother.

Despite her extraordinary love for her young daughter, she never subordinates motherhood to her profession or her profession to motherhood. She maintains both identities until the end, feeding the fantasy of the superwoman.

She also overcomes pressure from her feudal-minded mother-in-law not through confrontation or avoidance but by solving all kinds of problems for her husband’s family.

Her formidable competence reflects a broader social shift away from lingering patriarchy toward mutual respect and solidarity.

Bo-na’s only real source of conflict is an ethical dilemma.

Her principle of keeping emotion out of her work is occasionally shaken by her trauma from childhood abuse. While she believes in the legitimacy of vigilante justice, she is relentlessly pursued by Dong-jin, played by Lee Sang-yi, a police officer who represents public authority and views Kingfisher as a criminal.

The appearances of Sergei, played by Shin Hyun-soo, and Layla, played by Lee Elijah, fellow killers from Bo-na’s years as an adoptee in Russia, further complicate the morality of Kingfisher’s actions.

The public enthusiasm for vigilante punishment and the ethical questions it raises inevitably bring to mind “Death Note” (2003-06), the Japanese manga that has demonstrated the enduring appeal of killer content through adaptations into anime, films, television dramas and musicals.

After obtaining a death note dropped by a god of death, Light Yagami gains public support for punishing vicious criminals and eventually establishes himself as the godlike figure Kira, even killing investigators who pursue him.

Vigilante justice that begins in the name of righteousness deteriorates into the arrogance and violence of an individual wielding absolute power, ultimately ending in catastrophe.

Beyond familiar clichés

The superwoman narrative expands beyond the typical self-rescue fantasy in "A Bona fide Killer."

Bo-na is far removed from such self-righteousness and has little interest in power.

As department head, Bo-na works closely with her colleagues as a team. Team leader Kim Bong-pal, played by Sung Dong-il, is a veteran killer who specializes in disguising killings as accidental deaths and embodies an ideal leader. Assistant manager Bong, played by Kim Nam-hee, develops high-tech weapons; assistant manager Ki, played by Mu Jin-seong, is a genius hacker; Oh Hyun-nam, played by Ha Yully, excels at producing poisons; senior manager Ko, played by Heo Jae-ho, specializes in medical accidents and assistant manager Yang, played by Kim Ga-hee, specializes in document forgery.

Each brings specialized expertise to the team. Decisions are reached through democratic discussions, and after finishing their “client meetings,” they simply return to their lives as ordinary people.

The narrative has resonated with viewers as a fantasy they wish could become reality.

“I wish there were a Kingfisher in real life,” one comment on the finale read. The response helps explain both why female killers have taken over the small screen and why vigilante justice continues to return as a subject for television dramas.

The recent incompetence and indifference of public authorities exposed by the Jeju police’s mishandling of a recent missing persons case shocked the public. At a time when distrust in the policing and judicial systems has reached a peak, viewers identify with Bo-na not simply because she is an invincible, tough woman who can take on the world alone. They also find vicarious satisfaction and even a sense of solidarity in watching a team systematically overturn the absurdities and helplessness people encounter in everyday life.

“The popularity of female-killer stories at a time when the law and police are failing to provide a sufficient safety net reflects a pursuit of ‘vicarious agency,’ in which viewers watch a killer on screen punish evil and neutralize danger and feel as though they themselves are directly controlling those actions,” psychologist Cho Ji-sun said. “It reflects a modern female fantasy of survival through self-rescue — moving beyond the Cinderella complex of looking to men for salvation and toward the idea that I will take control of the risks and safety in my own life.”

It is reassuring that although Bo-na’s work-life balance is slightly disrupted, the story does not end with a twist that leaves viewers feeling betrayed after cheering her on episode after episode.

“Okay, let’s do this,” Bo-na says in the final line.

Kong’s cool smile looks all the more appealing because, by then, viewers are rooting for Bo-na’s next “client meeting.”

BY YOO JU-HYUN [[email protected]]