One of the highest complements I can
give to a story is it left me giggling like an excited school girl.
The latest modern film (from the 2010s) to accomplish such feat is Mad Max: Fury Road…or it was until I watched The Handmaiden. “Fantastic”
is the first word that comes to mind for describing The Handmaiden, but I can also think of a few more: exhilarating, passionate,
engrossing, refreshing, comical, erotic. I must confess, I hold a particular fondness
towards well-written erotic stories, emphasis on well-written. Fifty Shades of Grey is not a
well-written erotica, The Handmaiden
is—in fact, it’s a great one, because
it does what your run-of-the-mill erotica fails to do.
Set sometime during the early 1900s
in Japanese-occupied Korea, the story begins with a man and a woman planning a
large con operation. The man, who goes
by the false name of Count Fujiwara (Ha Jung-woo), has hired a thief named
Sook-Hee (Kim Tae-ri) to pose as a newly hired handmaiden for the mysterious,
yet wealthy Japanese heiress Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee). The Count plans to woo the heiress into
marriage—using Sook-Hee as a means to further sway the heiress’s feelings
for him—thereby taking her large inheritance before throwing his new bride into
an asylum. And that’s about all I can
tell regarding the plot without revealing the vast wealth of delightful surprises
and plot twists contained within the film.
The first—and perhaps most unexpected—aspect
to note about The Handmaiden is its
really funny. Not to the point where it
doesn’t take itself seriously, but to the point where it doesn’t take itself overly serious. There’s plenty of
dark, disturbing moments in the film, as well as a lot of emotionally touching ones,
yet this doesn’t stop The Handmaiden
from delivering the laughs: whether it be from witty banter, amusing facial expressions,
dark comedy, or just plain goofiness. There’s
a scene where the Count messes with a servant by continuously moving his teacup
around so she can’t take it, and another scene where a different servant relays
a message at an unusually rapid pace. The
latter servant is never heard from again, making the scene a bizarre, yet humorous
one-off joke.
MASSIVE SPOILERS BEGIN: One of The
Handmaiden’s most memorable, yet completely unexpected jokes is when Hideko
tries to hang herself, yet is saved by Sook-Hee. Sook-Hee reveals she and the Count have been
fooling her this whole time, only for Hideko to reveal it’s actually she and the Count who have fooled Sook-Hee. Furious at the Count’s double-crossing,
Sook-Hee lets go of Hideko to swear and rage, causing Hideko to begin suffocating
from the rope constricting her neck; Sook-Hee quickly realizes her mistake and
frantically rushes back to support Hideko.
The black comedy comes hilariously out-of-nowhere for such a dramatic moment—making
the scene highly entertaining and, of all things, more endearing than if it
were pure drama. The comedy is quite
bizarre at times, but, then again, this is
a film with bell penetration and suggested octopus sex, so the comedy actually ends
up fitting right in. MASSIVE SPOILERS
END
Characterization is the second
aspect The Handmaiden does remarkably
well—an aspect even rarer to find in your average erotica. The film fleshes out its main characters—developing them while showcasing each one of their perspectives—and not just
the protagonists mind you, but the antagonists as well. I previously wrote in my Kubo and the Two Strings review how the film feels like its
exploring a much larger journey for its runtime—The Handmaiden also does this, but with a focus directed more
towards characterization than the journey.
The two-and-a-half hour film gives the sensation of binge-watching an
entire 12-episode television season. While
there are a few areas where the pacing gets a bit sluggish, the film largely breezes
through with an enrapturing presentation.
The Handmaiden delivers
three-dimensional characters with fleshed out personalities and backstories—giving them satisfying arcs with minimal lethargic pacing, all while keeping to its
erotic roots.
Which leads me to the foundation of
The Handmaiden: the
sex. After all, how could the film be
a proper erotica without any titillation. So then, does The Handmaiden titillate? You
bet your ass it does! Let’s be absolutely
clear, The Handmaiden is not a film
to watch with your parents, or children, or even friends. The film is kinky and upfront about it. There’s nudity, there’s sex, and it is expressly made to turn you on. Either watch it with a romantic partner (if
they’re alright with such explicit material) or watch it alone.
It would be an absolute crime to
end this review without applauding The
Handmaiden's delicious array of surprise twists and turns throughout
the story. It’s as if somebody took the
plot twists to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo,
combined them with the erotic mysteries of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, and then added their own unique spin to the mix. The film pulls every form of misdirection to continuously
surprise its viewers; every time I thought I had the plot and characters figured
out, a new reveal changed my entire outlook.
The Handmaiden’s director Park
Chan-wook deserves particular praise for his usage of flashbacks and scene
splicing—difficult techniques to effectively utilize, yet done exceptionally
well here: creating the film’s wonderful plot twists. The film keeps surprising until the very end,
where all the puzzle pieces come fitting together quite satisfyingly. The story, the surprises, the characters, the
comedy, the romance, the erotica—it’s all a complete delight. The
Handmaiden doesn’t just deliver what it offers, but goes further beyond expected
and then some. The film is a must
see...so long as you’re alright with, as well as old enough to handle, its expressive
sex and kinkiness.
