From the Director of 'Oldboy,' This 96%-Rated Korean Movie Is a Twisted Tale of Love & Deception
Voices of unreliable narrators interrupt each other and all the characters are simultaneously predators and prey.
In 2016, The Handmaiden was released – a triumph for Oldboy director Park Chan-wook and widely considered one of his best works.
It's an elegant, minimalist film that blends genres, offering viewers incredible visuals and a dizzying plot – Park compresses the story into three chapters, each told from a different perspective.
What Is 'The Handmaiden' About?
It's the 1930s and Korea is under Japanese rule. A con man nicknamed Count makes a deal with a poor girl named Sook-hee: he plans to charm a wealthy Japanese woman named Hideko, elope with her to Japan, marry her, have her declared insane, and seize her fortune.
Sook-hee must help him by becoming Hideko's servant. However, the carefully crafted plan goes awry when Sook-hee falls in love with Hideko and decides to defect.
'The Handmaiden' Is a Graceful Movie About Forbidden Love That Teeters on the Edge of Obscenity
The Handmaiden is a visually striking film with stunning costumes and interiors, and fantastically expressive nature and physicality – all of these elements make the movie a true work of art.
The enormous house is divided into English and Japanese sections, and every scene is meticulously crafted. If The Handmaiden is salacious at all, it's only in its exquisite aesthetic.
Park Chan-wook creates a world in which you want to immerse yourself, from the interior details to the interplay of light and shadow. The cinematography and production design deserve special praise – every frame resembles a painting.
At the same time, despite the frankness of some scenes, the director remains wry, sentimental, and captivatingly normal.
The central plot of The Handmaiden is the romance between Sook-hee and Hideko. The male characters completely ignore it because they don't consider it – in their worldview, sex only happens in pornographic tomes.
The movie is permeated with humor and self-irony, imparting sobriety rather than frivolity. Park Chan-wook knows how to do what other directors either can't or are afraid to do: present a love story with frankness and grace.
What Did Critics & Viewers Think of 'The Handmaiden'?
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The Handmaiden has 96% from critics and 91% from viewers on Rotten Tomatoes.
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On IMDb, the movie has a score of 8.1/10.
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On Letterboxd, The Handmaiden scored 4.4/5.0.
Where to Watch 'The Handmaiden'?
The Handmaiden is available to stream on Prime Video.
