The Handmaiden (2016) (Korean & Japanese Language)

Review

144min

Genre:     Drama, Mystery, Romance

Director:  Park Chan-wook

Cast:       Kim Min-hee, Kim Tae-ri, Ha Jung-woo…and more

Writers:   Jeong Seo-kyeong, Park Chan-wook and Sarah Waters

-Synopsis-

Acclaimed South Korean writer/director Park Chan-wook’s (Oldboy, Thirst) sexually charged period drama set in early 20th-century occupied Korea, where a young Korean woman’s plan to defraud a beautiful Japanese heiress is complicated when she becomes infatuated with her.

In terms of character drama, there isn’t much South Korea’s premiere director hasn’t tackled his own inimitable way—from modern thrillers and mysteries to period dramas and horror, often darkly stylish and with a streak of vengeance. Now Park sets his sights on the British costume drama and adapts the Sarah Waters Victorian crime novel ‘Fingersmith’, adding a new socio-political element by setting it in 1930s Korea under Japanese imperialist rule, and provocatively making it his own by sexually turbo-charging it . . . as only Park can do.

Kim Tae-ri stars as orphan girl turned young streetwise career criminal ‘Sook-Hee’, co-opted by slick and sleazy conman ‘Fujiwara’ (Ha Jung-woo) to infiltrate the stately home of beautiful young aristocrat ‘Lady Hideko’ (Kim Min-hee) as her new handmaiden—smoothing the way for Fujiwara’s dastardly plan of posing as a Japanese count to steal the lady’s affections, and her fortune . . . right from under the nose of her domineering and sinister uncle ‘Kouzuki’ (Jo Jin-woong). But things become complicated when the servant develops confusing emotions for the sombre and seemingly naive young heiress, unravelling a sensual web of deception which reveals many disturbing and competing intentions in this impeccably-styled and misdirecting costume drama.

At first glance ‘The Handmaiden’ might look like a Korean version of an immaculately crafted and expertly executed English period piece—and in many ways it is—taking a cue from its 2002 British source material and using world class production design to create spectacular sets and costumes, vividly capturing it all (along with gorgeous South Korean landscapes) through the expert lens of Park Chan-wook’s go-to cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon. The director also manages to seamlessly meld European architecture and design with the stylings and aesthetics of the Far East, not to mention using an evocative classical score from composer Jo Yeong-wook to heighten all the drama.

A deeper look however, will reveal a wonderfully intricate and deliberately wrong-footing character study and historical melodrama. Tense and occasionally darkly comical, perverse and stark but paradoxically uplifting in a way, but most importantly provocative and highly sensual—combining artistry, literature and high culture with carnal desires, sexual perversions and erotic obsessions . . . in immaculate and sometimes disturbing style, and going far beyond any costume drama you’ve probably seen.

Yet ‘The Handmaiden’ is much more than a sexually charged period drama, proving to be an intricate triple-crossing crime story in a historical context which reflects the resentment between the Koreans and Japanese, and betrays a lingering inferiority complex. It’s also a tale told from a feminist perspective which reflects the director’s gravitation towards strong fictional women—featuring the smashing of a distinct historical patriarchy within a surreal story of female empowerment, which rises from the depths of exploitation and perversion . . . and without a sympathetic male character to be found.

The performances are all accomplished and nuanced albeit emotionally heightened, this being a period romance melodrama and all, but somehow still raw and daring and with Kim Tae-ri and Kim Min-hee particularly impressing as the two female leads— two young women from very different upbringings who connect over the shared pain of abandonment and abuse, developing a tender romance surrounded by high-society depravity.

‘The Handmaiden’ has plenty of intrigue in its intricate plot of deception and revenge, but despite some tension—particularly of the sexual variety—it’s not a thriller in any real way and unravels at a deliberating pace, meticulously building context and character, but it’s certainly never sluggish and has more than enough to keep you gripped throughout. It’s also very sensual and sexual in nature, featuring graphic nudity and prolonged explicit scenes of lesbian sex that just about sit on the right side of soft porn—which incidentally is a core theme of the narrative itself—but despite them being unexpectedly brazen and risqué, they’re highly stylised and never truly lurid.

Park Chan-wook’s latest picture might be a bit too steamy, provocative and slowly-paced for some audiences, but for the more open-minded this is a seductive and entrancing concoction of traditional cinematic styles and fearless modern filmmaking. A character drama meditation on abuse, abandonment and perversion, wrapped in an unconventional love story and set in a traditional context, while playing out as an intricate tale of crime and deceit—all adding to the director’s already established reputation as one of the most daring filmmakers in world cinema.

The Bottom Line . . .

An expertly conceived, impeccably crafted and boldly executed period melodrama, ‘The Handmaiden’ is dark and highly erotic costume drama as you’ve never seen it before, a stylish story of intrigue and revenge as only its singular director could tell it. Park Chan-wook puts his unique take on the film’s captivating British source material, to create a visually stunning and thematically layered feminist narrative, which is simultaneously perverse and tender, and vividly showcases exactly what Asian cinema has to offer a jaded Western audience.

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