Today we will be diving deep into a movie that was highly recommended by movie critics, and awarded with several awards including the BAFTA Awards. For this review we will be digging deep into the 2016 Romance/Drama ‘The Handmaiden’.
Times of War
Written by Park Chan-wook and Chung Seo-kyung and directed by Park Chan-wook, ‘The Handmaiden’ is a film inspired by the book ‘The Fingersmith’ by Sarah Waters.
The story fully develops during the Japanese occupation in Korea, and viewers get a taste of the big divide in social class of the time.
Divided into three acts, this movie explores the lives of Nam Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri) and Izumi Hideko (Kim Min-hee).
In the first act we get the background story of Nam Sook-hee, a pickpocket hired by a con man who goes by the name of Count Fujiwara (Ha Jung-woo). Sook-hee’s job is to help him obtain the affection and seduce Izumi Hideko, an heiress who lives with her uncle Kouzuki (Cho Jin-woong).
Izumi was raised by her uncle, a man with interest in rare books, she was trained to read them to a group of business man interested in erotic literature.
Sook-hee gets close to Izumi and she notices how naive she is. This is followed by her starting to double think the deal she had made with Fujiwara, in a turn of events she confronts him and asks him to not go too hard on Izumi.
One night Izumi asks Sook-hee to sleep with her and they end-up having sex in a complete turn of events. After this, Sook-hee finds herself not wanting Izumi to be with the Count but she has no other choice than to go forward with the plan.
Izumi asks her if she should elope with the count or not, Sook-hee advises to go with him. They end up fighting and Izumi throws her out of her bedroom.
Izumi elopes with the count, they get married and as part of the plan he intends to put her in a mental institution, however, they end up sending Sook-hee who is given Izumi’s identity.
Selective Naivety
Act two starts off, and the plot unfolds with Izumi and the Count plotting their elopement. In their plan Izumi asks him for a new maid who could take her identity and be sent to the mental institution.
In this act we also get to know Izumi’s past and how she was trained since childhood to read erotic novels to her uncle’s guests. In one of the readings she meets the con man and from there they start to plot a way for her to be free.
Izumi’s childhood is filled with memories of her being hardly punished, being treated poorly to the extent of seeing her aunt who lived with her hanging herself.
She grows up under difficult and traumatizing circumstances, which led her to wanting to break free from her sick past. However, while executing her plan she finds herself attracted to Sook-hee.
The night they have the fight after Sook-hee tells her to move on and marry the Count, Izumi tries to take her life. Sook-hee finds her and prevents this event from happening, she also reveals the plot she had to send her to the mental house, however she finds out about the plan between the con man and Izumi.
After this moment of truth they both plan a way to escape with the help of Sook-hee’s family. This act ends with the two of them leaving the house, but before doing so, Izumi shows Sook-hee the books she’s been reading to her uncle’s friends for years. Sook-hee destroys the books and they both leave the house.
The moment of the truth
The final act starts with Sook-hee escaping from the mental institution after her family starts a fire. Izumi on her side is trying to seduce the Count to poison him and be able to meet Sook-hee. She successfully achieves it and they both are able to reunite and escape.
Izumi’s uncle however, sends samurai to find her and bring her back, however they only find the Count and consequently take him to meet him back in the mansion.
Kouzuki tortures the con-man in an attempt to make him reveal the location of Izumi, however, he isn’t able to provide any information and ends up smoking mercury cigarettes from which he and Kouzuki die.
Sook-hee and Izumi leave the country, and take a ship to China, looking for a new life with new identities. The movie ends with them both making love in their bedroom on the ship.
Sex or Art?
Undoubtedly I could see why the movie had good reviews from an aesthetical point of view, the filming itself and scenery were top quality. However, the sex scenes between Sook-hee and Izumi rather than being artistically shot, they felt like more like porn with a budget.
They did have cute moments, and for sure many viewers empathise with Izumi, however as I watched the movie I wondered if the explicitness of the sex scenes was that necessary.
On the other side, the torture scenes were hard to watch for me, they were quite graphic and turned me off the movie.
The acting is undoubtedly fantastic, the line-up of actors is top tier but I felt that they weren’t able to show their full potential in this production.
Overall, ‘The Handmaiden’ is a very aesthetically beautiful production (if you remove the sex and torture scenes), with a fantastic cast and great acting. However, I wonder if the hype was based on the kink of lesbian sex in a high budget movie, or the actual story.
You can watch this movie on Netflix, and below you can check the trailer.
