The Handmaiden
2016Thriller · Romance145 min
Gorgeous, filthy, and the two women beat every man in the film.
A Korean con-artist thriller that keeps turning inside out.
Our take
A pickpocket is planted as a maid to a Japanese heiress in colonial-era Korea, as part of a plot to defraud her. Park Chan-wook then tells the same events three times, and each pass reveals that someone you trusted was running a different game.
It is sumptuous to look at and genuinely tense, and the romance is not a twist so much as the engine. The men in it are grotesque and the film knows exactly what it is doing with that; by the end the two women have taken everything and gone. Note the octopus, and the running time — it earns both.
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Scores
Ours
Jibbi Score — 4.5 out of 5 rainbows. Gorgeous, filthy, and the two women beat every man in the film.
Also recorded
- Rotten Tomatoes — 96%, as recorded on Wikidata — Rotten Tomatoes has no public API, so this is the openly licensed figure rather than a live reading.
- TMDB — 8.2 out of 10 from 4,514 votes, refreshed daily.
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The plot, officially
1930s Korea, in the period of Japanese occupation, a new girl, Sook-hee, is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, Hideko, who lives a secluded life on a large countryside estate with her domineering Uncle Kouzuki. But the maid has a secret. She is a pickpocket recruited by a swindler posing as a Japanese Count to help him seduce the Lady to steal her fortune.
Synopsis and poster via TMDB.
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