The Handmaiden (2016)

Strictly average movie

Absolutely brilliant

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Park Chan-Wook's (Old Boy/Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance) latest is a beautiful erotic thriller. A Korean girl gets a position as a maid for a spoiled, uptight Japanese woman for the sole purpose of being seduced by a visiting suitor (the maid's partner in crime) for her fortune. Ornately shot & designed to maximum effect, this may be the closest Wook has come to making a feel good film if one can brand this film as. Truly a feast for the eyes.

Had this remained a revenge movie with a twist I would have appreciated it a lot better. But then it enters lesbian soft porn territory and the movie takes on an entirely different tone. I can just imagine what theater movie goers must have gone through when the love scenes between Lady Hideko (Min-hee Kim) and Sook-hee (Tae-ri Kim) took center stage. When you're not ready or prepared for it, the sex scenes can inadvertently turn a promising night out into a virtual catastrophe. The story could have been told without the explicit sex and perhaps might have been more enthralling if the affair between the Japanese heir and her Korean handmaiden been more nuanced and suggestive. I didn't particularly care for director Chan-wook Park's "Oldboy" either. He has a visually captivating style but his choice of subject matter ought to come with a viewer discretion warning.

I try not to use that word, it's rather overused for films that just aren't masterpieces. But when a film is so gorgeous that it imitates art, so multi-dimensional that it transcends the majority of narratives and so daring that it tests the limitations of film itself...I can't help but call it a masterpiece. A rich Japanese lady recruits a handmaiden who soon turns out to be a swindler, tasked with falsifying a wedding in order to steal her money. Twists and turns soon reveal many secrets that question the legitimacy of the new handmaiden's undercover task. Immediately I was hypnotised. Park Chan-Wook has such an eye for detail, every frame is lovingly crafted and resembles a jewel on a glistening necklace. Cinematography rarely looks this gorgeous, honestly. The visceral imagery conveys multiple themes of lust, greed, jealousy...in fact, nearly all the seven deadly sins are thematically interwoven in this complex narrative. Chan-Wook played me like a puppet. Manipulating my mind with every unexpected twist. It's a story of how powerful love is. An emotion so overwhelming that people are moulded by its presence. The lead characters all experience this, whether it be falsifying love or truly experiencing it for the first time. How motivations for money and power can be blurred by love. It's just a work of art. It truly is. Deceive me once? I applaud you. Deceive me twice? I'm jumping up and down the room like a lunatic. Tiny intricacies that are soon explained within the narrative's three parts, these revelations blew my mind. With an everlasting haunting undertone, it just made the story all the more resonating. Even the musical score was stunning, replicating orchestral symphonies with traditional Asian instruments. I will say it's an 18 for a reason, the sexual nature is extremely explicit yet it doesn't detract from the seamless story. Asian cinema has yet again proven that it's better than Hollywood. The Handmaiden, easily, acquires the perfect rating.

1. I hated the finger chopping part at the end, strong no to that. The basement stuff was necessary but we could've skimmed over the physical chopping of the stuff. 2. some of the sex scenes weren't great 3. the less i had to see of that fucking octopus the better it would've been. i wanted to die. I would give it a 9 or even an 8 but I can't bring myself to because of how wonderful everything else was.