Movie Review: The Handmaiden (Japanese/Korean)

To an already impressive list of great literary works adapted into fantastic movies in 2016 like Silence, Nocturnal Animals and Moonlight (it's a play) joins the sexy spy thriller and moody psychological horror film The Handmaiden. Taking inspiration from Sarah Waters' 2002 crime novel Fingersmith, director Park Chan-wook does away with the Victorian era British backdrop and gives it such a convincing Korean (the country then under Japanese rule) makeover you begin to marvel at the seamlessness (and atmospherics) of it all. I am not going to give away the story except to say that it's an accomplished work of art, not just full of passion, sensual bliss and perverse erotic pleasure, but also as a densely plotted smorgasbord of tropes packed with devious thrills, themes of female liberation and historical innuendo. Thus what sets out as a story of a pickpocket posing as a handmaiden out to swindle a confined heiress soon becomes a twisted romance, carrying a twist you wouldn't have otherwise seen coming as it reaches giddy narrative heights. Set to a sweeping musical score by Jo Yeong-wook, The Handmaiden is visually arresting and irresistible. It's gothic romance at its elegant, orgasmic best.