Handmaiden
This film is simmering with genuine sexual tension. Exquisitely designed and sexually liberating, this is a hugely entertaining thriller.
-- Benjamin Lee, Guardian
The Handmaiden
Celebrated filmmaker Park Chan-wook’s (OLDBOY, LADY VENGEANCE, STOKER) ravishing new crime drama, THE HANDMAIDEN is adapted from Welsh author Sarah Waters’ 2002 Victorian-set lesbian romance novel Fingersmith. Park and co-writer Chung Seo-kyung have transposed Waters’ story to 1930s-era colonial Korea and Japan. THE HANDMAIDEN premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where production designer Ryu Seong-hie was awarded the Vulcain Prize for the Technical Artist, and will also screen as a Special Presentation during the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.
THE HANDMAIDEN is the gripping and sensual tale of two women – a young Japanese lady living on a secluded estate, and a Korean woman who is hired to serve as her new handmaiden, but is secretly plotting with a con man to defraud her of her large inheritance. Powered by remarkable performances from Kim Min-hee (RIGHT NOW, WRONG THEN) as Lady Hideko, Ha Jung-woo (THE CHASER) as the con man who calls himself the Count, and sensational debut actress Kim Tae-ri as the maid Sookee, THE HANDMAIDEN borrows the most dynamic elements of its source material and combines it with Park Chan-wook’s singular vision and energy to create a mesmerizing experience boasting more tangled plots and bodies than an octopus has tentacles.
“Expectations are fully met in Park Chan-wook’s exquisitely filmed The Handmaiden (Agassi), an amusingly kinky erotic thriller and love story that brims with delicious surprises.”
– Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter
“‘The Handmaiden’ is the Korean director Park Chan-wook’s most delectable narrative feature in years. This ornately art-directed erotic puzzler centers around two beautiful women…Over the course of the movie’s three chapters, two of which provide a revelatory, ‘Rashomon’ style shift in perspective, the women will become lovers, rivals and allies, and their teasing, mercurial role play is what gives the movie its seductive pull.” – Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
THE HANDMAIDEN is the gripping and sensual tale of two women – a young Japanese lady living on a secluded estate, and a Korean woman who is hired to serve as her new handmaiden, but is secretly plotting with a con man to defraud her of her large inheritance. Powered by remarkable performances from Kim Min-hee (RIGHT NOW, WRONG THEN) as Lady Hideko, Ha Jung-woo (THE CHASER) as the con man who calls himself the Count, and sensational debut actress Kim Tae-ri as the maid Sookee, THE HANDMAIDEN borrows the most dynamic elements of its source material and combines it with Park Chan-wook’s singular vision and energy to create a mesmerizing experience boasting more tangled plots and bodies than an octopus has tentacles.
“Expectations are fully met in Park Chan-wook’s exquisitely filmed The Handmaiden (Agassi), an amusingly kinky erotic thriller and love story that brims with delicious surprises.”
– Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter
“‘The Handmaiden’ is the Korean director Park Chan-wook’s most delectable narrative feature in years. This ornately art-directed erotic puzzler centers around two beautiful women…Over the course of the movie’s three chapters, two of which provide a revelatory, ‘Rashomon’ style shift in perspective, the women will become lovers, rivals and allies, and their teasing, mercurial role play is what gives the movie its seductive pull.” – Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
Genre
Drama,
Romance
Runtime
145
Language
Korean,
Japanese
Director
Park Chan-wook
Cast
Kim Min-hee,
Kim Tae-ri
Awards:
Winner, Best Production Design, Los Angeles Film Critics Association
FEATURED REVIEW
Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com
Park Chan-Wook’s “The Handmaiden” is a love story, revenge thriller and puzzle film set in Japanese-occupied Korea in the 1930s. It is voluptuously beautiful, frankly sexual, occasionally perverse and horrifically violent. At times its very existence feels inexplicable. And yet all of its disparate ...
Played at
NoHo 7 10.28.16 - 11.22.16
Playhouse 7 10.28.16 - 11.22.16
Monica Film Center 11.04.16 - 11.17.16
Claremont 5 11.11.16 - 11.17.16
Fine Arts Theatre 12.16.16 - 12.22.16
Royal 1.13.17 - 1.19.17
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