Visionary director Park Chan-wook is ready to wow audiences once more with the much-talked about drama The Handmaiden. The film premiered at Cannes in May to a positive response, receiving the Vulcain Prize for artistic direction and special notice for its bold (even controversial) handling of themes such as sexuality and betrayal.
The Handmaiden is a sexually charged thriller set in ’30s Korea, under Japanese colonial rule. Con man Count Fujiwara (Ha Jung-woo) employs Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri) as the maid of the enigmatic Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee), an heiress of enormous wealth. As Lady Hideko begins to fall for the maid tasked to deceive her, the narrative spins into a complex exploration of desire.
The Handmaiden marks Park Chan-wook’s first Korean-language film since 2009’s Thirst, which won the Cannes Jury Prize. Noted for brutal and moodily audacious fare such as Oldboy and Stoker, the director is best known for using precise visual framing, black humor, and graphic sequences. And for a film that is reported to include intensely erotic sex scenes and a particularly harrowing depiction of torture, that reputation appears unlikely to change here.
