The Handmaiden

The Handmaiden is a Korean film that is surprising on several levels.

On the one hand there is an element of subtlety regarding the cultural interplay between the various Korean and Japanese characters. It is set mostly in Korea under Japanese occupation... with Korean dialogue in yellow subtitles and Japanese dialogue in white subtitles. Some of the Koreans want to be Japanese, some of the Japanese want to be Korean... it is complicated.

On the other hand there is no subtlety regarding the sexual interaction between characters. There is a lot of sex. And not the clothes-come-off-cut-to-afterglow kind... it is explicit and detailed and prolonged.

The movie is quite long at over 2.5 hours. But it is split into 3 parts, so you can pause and... er... recover between parts if you want to.

For the first part everything seems to be explained and the most intriguing thing is how they are going to fill two more parts since the story seems pretty much done and dusted towards the end of the section.

Then. Bang (no, not a sex scene, a big surprise) and you realise that most of what you thought you knew must be wrong. This is the point at which I really got interested... up to here I was starting to get a bit bored... but the surprise grabbed my attention.

Part 2 takes you back before the start and explains why the surprise happened. It is all very convincing, again. But is it true? I was more wary this time because I had already been tricked once... and there is a part 3.

I am not going to spoil the plot, just say that I liked the way the story was told. It was very entertaining and set a perfect canvas for the detailed and explicit interactions of characters.

The sex scenes were done well, I thought. The first was shocking in a way, because most of the movies I watch only give hints. It was refreshing to see the whole story for a change... because the sex is an important part of the story. I'm not saying that just because I enjoyed watching... there are plenty of porn sites if that is all you want to see.

So I think there is another lesson here for Western film makers / legislators. Just as Korean action films do violence better, Korean thrillers like this do sex better too.