The Handmaiden (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Handmaiden (2016) – C.-W. Park

You’ve got to expect a certain degree of intensity from director Chan-wook Park (based on 2003’s Old Boy alone!) and so the slow burn that makes up the first hour of The Handmaiden is something of a surprise.  Is this really just a stately period piece, set in 1930s Korea (occupied by the Japanese at the time) in a beautiful and exquisitely furnished mansion?  The plot description tells us that we will see a wealthy lady swindled by a con man in league with a pickpocket (who takes on the job of the lady’s handmaiden).  The con is supposed to result in the con man marrying the lady and then committing her to a mental institution and escaping with her fortune (a portion of which will be given to the handmaiden).  But by the end of the first hour (“Part 1”) this plot has run its course – and then things get much wilder and more like what we might expect from Park.  In fact, like all good con game movies, we are soon treated to the same events played again with a different vantage point (“Part 2”) and extending to a far different conclusion than would have been anticipated. Min-hee Kim plays Lady Hideko with a chilly distance (but proves far more knowing than she at first seems); Tae-ri Kim, as the handmaiden, may be the opposite (proving less crafty than we thought).  Park gives every set and sequence a sort of heightened reality and this is never more realised than in the extended graphic sex scenes which seem integrated into the plot (and the motivations of the characters) rather than offered gratuitously for titillation.  That said, Park is certainly playing to his audience’s expectations by pushing the envelope – and then there is another damned octopus!