I must confess that this is not the first time I have watched this film. Yes–as a matter of fact, my virginal watch experience has been tainted by the in-flight movie programming on my plane. Sadly, watching lesbian sex scenes and sadistic dungeon torture in public means that you get the occasional side-eye from the occasional seat-mate. So I had to cut my watching experience short.
Now, 2 years later and after much exploration of my own sexuality, I decided to revisit this gothic lesbian masterpiece and boy–was it a ride. To anyone who is hesitant about watching this movie, read on as I give my own analysis and review of the The Handmaiden by Park Chan-wook. Spoilers Ahoy!
< PLOT >
The Handmaiden is a loose adaptation of the 2002 historical novel by Sarah Waters. Instead of the story being set in Victorian-England and the characters being of Anglo-European descent, Park Chan-wook uses a Japan-occupied Korea and a mixture of Japanese and Korean characters.
Sook-hee is an impoverished Korean girl adopted into a family of pick-pocketers and forgery artists. She is offered a business proposition by a con-man who intends to swindle a wealthy Japanese heiress out of her fortune through marriage. In exchange for a portion of her fortune, Sook-hee must pose as a newly engaged handmaiden to the mistress of the Kouzuki household. Sook-hee attends to the Lady Hideko as a faithful handmaid and continues to nudge her into a loveless marriage with the “Count Fujiwara”.
However, contrary to Sook-hee’s expectations, she ends up becoming enraptured by the naïve and ethereally beautiful Hideko. Sook-hee struggles between her growing romantic feelings for her mistress and her duty towards her true mission, eventually having sex with Hideko. After succumbing to their carnal desires, Sook-hee becomes less invested in deceiving Hideko but feels obligated to fulfilling the contract between her family and the fake “Count Fujiwara”.
However, in a turn of events, after getting married to the false Count, Hideko commits Sook-hee to a mental asylum, claiming that she was instead the Lady of the Kouzuki house. The first act ends with Sook-hee being betrayed by both the Count and her Lady after it was revealed that there was another business arrangement behind the scenes.
Act 2 explores more of Lady Hideko’s childhood and the abuse she has suffered at the hands of her uncle. It is revealed that Hideko was brought up to be a replacement for her mother whose beauty was unparalleled. From a young age, she was indoctrinated beside her aunt to do erotic readings for old, sexually-deviant men and act as the medium through which the men could carry out their dream fantasies to. Throughout her life, she was locked away in the mansion and used by everyone around her, causing her to accept a proposition from the supposed “Count Fujiwara”. In exchange for giving her freedom, the Count wants her fortune through a sham marriage. Agreeing to the terms, Hideko asks for a naïve handmaiden in order to pose as her after successfully conducting the marriage.
However, Hideko never expected herself to fall for the stupidly honest handmaiden. She continued to deceive Sook-hee by pretending to be falling in love with the Count, all the while secretly hoping for Sook-hee to confess everything to her and promise to never betray her. After failing to receive a confession from Sook-hee, Hideko chooses to commit suicide in a similar way to her aunt. Sook-hee manages to stop her and the two formulate a plan to elope and protect Hideko from her controlling uncle and lustful Count.
Act 3 connects the dots between each shallow plot point and allows for more depth to be shown in the story. Sook-hee and Hideko continue their relationship while being careful to hide their true intentions when under the surveillance of the Count. Sook-hee is rescued from the asylum by her family while Hideko seduces the Count and poisons him. Hideko escapes from the Count and manages to run away with Sook-hee to Shanghai while her uncle and the Count succumb to mercury poisoning in the dungeons.
< REVIEW >
Previously I reviewed Luca Guadagnino’s 2017 film, Call Me By Your Name, and in that post, I noted that there was an obvious lack of emphasis placed on the same-sex factor of the relationship between Oliver and Elio. What I mean is that unlike most “gay” coded cinema, there is no specific moment in the movie where being gay was the main conflict. Similarly, The Handmaiden also makes the interesting choice to focus less on the scandalous portrayal of a lesbian couple in Meiji-period conservative Asia.
Personally, I find the lack of superimposed “ITS GAY” thematic influence to be preferable. It’s a personal preference but to me, sexuality should be acknowledged, celebrated but not differentiated. There is nothing wrong with movies focused around just being gay and the whole experience of coming out but I do find “gay movies” in general to be very one-dimensional. Cough Love, Simon Cough. Though there are good ones Whispers Let me know if you have any recommendations. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
I really loved Park Chan-Wook’s choice to incorporate a blend of different cultures. Despite the time period being Japan-occupied Korea, Hideko dresses in Euro-centric clothing that uses Edwardian and Victorian fashions. The big bonnet-like hair is just Chef’s kiss and I adore the ruffles and Western-Japanese architecture. The fact that it was a plot point and not just simply aesthetics, makes the directorial decision even more remarkable. I’m just a sucker for period costumes and the while the film retains an essence of post-modernism in its themes of classism and sexual grooming, it still carries the essence of a classic historical drama, flowery depictions and all.
The plot twists–oh god. Following the original source material, The Handmaiden uses a three act plot progression. Like the Lord of The Rings, this film has both an extended version and a theatrical cut. But unlike TLoTR, some viewers actually prefer the shortened edit rather than the longer one. I watched the extended version which allows for about 20 minutes of extra footage to be shown. The thing is, forums seem 50/50 on the different cuts, some say that it changes the order in which information is revealed. I say, watch the theatrical cut then the extended version since it was more of a bonus for the fans.
Park Chan-Wook is kind of a mastermind when it comes to the story progression. I mean, the dude literally directed Old boy. So, stakes were high when the Fingersmith was adapted. I must admit that on my first watch, I had the presumption that it was going to be another tragic “bury your gays” love story. Boy–was I wrong. Once we reached the end of the first act, I was kind of left stricken and confused.
In the second act, there was this sense of lingering uncertainty. As we went through the flashbacks to learn more about Hideko, I checked the time progression bar and was surprised to see that we had about an hour and a half of run time left. I was curious. What could possibly happen now?
As we delved deeper into the sexual abuse and gratification that the uncle had towards Hideko and her aunt, I was filled with a kind of morbid fascination. It is definitely brave of the film to explore incestuous, and pedophilic themes as well as sexual-fetishes while being tasteful about it. There is nothing redeemable about pedophiles but I am glad to see the problem of child-grooming being addressed without being overly explicit. Ahem Netflix Cuties.
I…I won’t lie. I was not expecting the change of sides. Hell–I could not even fathom the fact that it had a happy ending. If anything, it kind of was the biggest plot twist of all time. Once it was shown that Hideko and Sook-hee were already together before they left the mansion, I was just absolutely blown away. I think I shed a couple of tears too. It was brilliant how everyone backstabbed each other and then in the end, the two lesbians teamed up to purge the world of the evil abusive men.
Wow. Just. Wow.
Now, that’s how you do a plot twist well. Instead of simply incorporating twists for the sake of the shock factor, The Handmaiden reshuffles the story so you will be able to gain a new viewing experience each time you watch it.
I really liked the portrayal of Hideko too, brilliant performance by the lovely Kim Min-hee. (Can you believe that she was 34 years old in that film???) The Japanese heiress is not shown to be outwardly emotionless rather, she is emotionally stunted and I think Kim Min-hee did well in showcasing that. When faced with a world filled with sex where she , herself becomes nothing more than an object used for sexual gratification, it’s not surprisingly that she seeks comfort in the naïve handmaiden who actually treats her like a human being and not a pliant doll.
Kim Tae-ri is also brilliant. She plays the part of a bright but foolish handmaiden so well. I love the book-tearing part so much. I know that it’s a cliché but it is incredibly liberating to see all that pornography being ripped. It’s a huge middle finger to Hideko’s uncle to see his life’s work being ruined in a span of 10 minutes.
And now the part that you’ve all been waiting for. Let’s talk lesbianism. Yes, let’s be honest here. The main draw of this film was the fact that it involves Asian lesbians and it has a happy ending where they both literally run away into the sunset together.
I think…this is maybe one of the first if not the first lesbian film I’ve seen. I’ve consumed gay media before and read yuri manga but let’s be honest (heh), most of yuri stuff is made by straight men who fetishise the idea of two women together. Not to say that The Handmaiden wasn’t made by a straight man for other straight men, but au contraire, the film does not perpetuate any stereotypes or serve the women up as pieces of meat for the consumption of the audience.
As a female whose inclined to others of the womanly form, I actually found the depiction of Hideko and Sook-hee’s relationship to be very idealistic. It’s a gay relationship without any of the awkward flirting, the “is she” or “would she”, and in that sense, its heavily idealised. I have my qualms about this but as I’ve mentioned at the beginning of my review, in order to not emphasise on the same-sex factor of the film, there must be some compromise. So, in exchange for not acknowledging the blatant homophobia prevalent in Meiji-period Asia, all issues are erased and now they’re just in a perfected relationship.
Okay–now that I’ve praised this film plenty, let’s get into the discussion of the controversies surrounding this film. Starting with the choice to incorporate sex scenes. There was some discourse over the decision since the original source material was not advertised as an erotica.
Also, let’s be real here. It’s Korea. The main demographic is conservative Asians. Nudity is already considered a big no-no, let alone full blown sex scenes with L E S B I A N S. As an Asian myself, I can honestly say that it was probably the most sex that people have ever seen in Asian media. I am all for open depictions of sex in mainstream media, it will help to normalise healthy sex between couples and also make people realise that you aren’t a thot for having sex before marriage.
However, I do think that there are a bit too many sex scenes. I mean, I understand that one of the central conflict of the film is the dilemma of Hideko deriving sexual pleasure from acts that once disgusted her. Therefore, the whole bell scene where she takes back the meaning of pain being associated with the taste of metal to instead mean pleasure. Still, the two women are obviously heavily sexualised and no just because of the plot of the film.
I am still a bit iffy about the choice to include very stereotypical lesbian sex positions like the infamous scissoring. From forums I’ve read, it’s described as incredibly inefficient and very rarely used but, well, I guess you can’t expect them to get everything right.
MisHATventures 