Movie Review—The Handmaiden

by Peter J. O’Connell    

The Handmaiden. Released (USA): Oct. 2016. Runtime: 144 mins. Language: Korean and Japanese with English subtitles.

At a time when Broadway’s biggest hit is Hamilton, a musical about America’s Founding Fathers done in hip-hop style by young performers of color, it should be no surprise that a contemporary Welsh author’s novel about a young woman pickpocket’s adventures and misadventures in Victorian London has been turned into a Korean film about a female pickpocket’s adventures and misadventures at an estate in 1930s Korea under colonial Japanese rule.

Sook-Hee (played by Tae-ri Kim) is the pickpocket, and we first encounter her in a Faginesque family of thieves and con artists. There she is recruited by a swindler (Jung-woo Ha) to play a role in an elaborate scheme of his. The swindler plans to pass himself off as a Japanese nobleman, Count Fujiwara, and ingratiate himself with Kouzuki (Jin-woong Jo), the master of a secluded estate where Kouzuki lives with his niece, Lady Hideko (Min-hee Kim), who is an heiress. Fujiwara will get Sook-Hee hired as handmaiden to Hideko. Then, Fujiwara says, he will seduce Hideko, elope with her, rob her of her fortune, and have her locked up in an insane asylum.

Matters are complicated by the fact that Kouzuki, supposedly a cultured dealer in rare books and artifacts, is actually a domineering sicko whose rarities are erotica, which he forces his niece to read or display to aristocratic guests, who then bid for the items. Further complications come from Japanese-Korean ethnic and class tensions, but the greatest complication is the intense relationship that develops between Lady Hideko and Sook-Hee. The estate’s world becomes one of cries and whispers, secrets and lies, founded on filth but pierced by passion.

The Handmaiden’ s plot structure, production design and cinematography, and acting are all superb. The film proceeds in three phases, as it were, each concluding with a shocking development. The second part begins at a point before the first part concludes and then adds plot background and character depth as it proceeds. The same is true of the third part relative to the second.

Director Chan-wook Park locates the intense events of his plot within the seemingly serene setting of the beautiful estate, beautifully photographed. All his actors seem to bond completely with the essence of their characters, whether it is the slipperiness of Fujiwara, the cruelty of Kouzuki, or the mysteriousness of Hideko. The most difficult role is that of Sook-Hee, a scamster who has to play an innocent—a young servant to a foreign aristocrat—but who is in many ways really an innocent herself. Tae-ri Kim handles this role masterfully.

“Footnote” to the film: The title of the film in the original Korean is Agassi, which translates as Lady. The “Lady” would be Hideko. However, the title given to the film in English-speaking countries is The Handmaiden, which would refer to Sook-Hee. This title may have been chosen to capitalize on the interest building around next year’s release of the (second) film version of Margaret Atwood’s classic feminist/science-fiction novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.