The Handmaiden (2016)
From around the mid 90s a trend started with having subversive twists and big reveals in the plots. Fight Club, The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense and of course later also Oldboy. It seems like since then that we as an audience have come expect huge twists and when they do come, it has less of an impact. Maybe that is why this movie didn’t work for me or Park Chan-wook has lost his touch since Oldboy.
While there is nothing technical wrong with the script here, it is actually quite clever and I didn’t see the various turns in who was conning who. The various reveals and seeing the same events again with this new knowledge just didn’t have any impact on me. Park Chan-wook used similar storytelling techniques in Oldboy, but my reaction here was completely mute and disinterested. I was mostly bored throughout The Handmaiden - with the only exception being the few scenes with young Hideko. The horror that child lived through really came through with a very convincing performance from this young actress. My two stars are mostly for her.
I also can’t ignore the outright silly sex scenes. I can’t claim to have any knowledge about how lesbians have sex, but this really looked to be very inspired from porn. You could say that given Hideko’s messed up upbringing with porn, it could explain why that is her frame of reference for sex, but that is stretching it a bit.
Rating: 2