The Handmaiden
A Korean con-artist thriller that keeps turning inside out.
Gorgeous, filthy, and the two women beat every man in the film.
- 2016
- 145 min
- 96% on Rotten Tomatoes
- 8.1 on IMDb
- #romance
- #drama
Our take
A pickpocket is planted as a maid to a Japanese heiress in colonial-era Korea, as part of a plot to defraud her. Park Chan-wook then tells the same events three times, and each pass reveals that someone you trusted was running a different game.
It is sumptuous to look at and genuinely tense, and the romance is not a twist so much as the engine. The men in it are grotesque and the film knows exactly what it is doing with that; by the end the two women have taken everything and gone. Note the octopus, and the running time — it earns both.
Where to watch The Handmaiden
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Scores
Ours
- Jibbi Score — 4.5 out of 5 rainbows. Gorgeous, filthy, and the two women beat every man in the film.
Everyone else’s
- Rotten Tomatoes — 96%, via OMDb.
- IMDb — 8.1 out of 10 from 199,145 votes, via OMDb.
- Metacritic — 85 out of 100, via OMDb.
- TMDB — 8.2 out of 10 from 4,413 votes, refreshed daily.
The plot, officially
1930s Korea, in the period of Japanese occupation, a new girl, Sook-hee, is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, Hideko, who lives a secluded life on a large countryside estate with her domineering Uncle Kouzuki. But the maid has a secret. She is a pickpocket recruited by a swindler posing as a Japanese Count to help him seduce the Lady to steal her fortune.
Synopsis and poster via TMDB.