![]() ![]() At a certain point the perspective shifts from Soo-kee to Hideko, exposing things about which Soo-kee unaware. Without revealing too much and spoiling it, I can say that this is a film of two halves. However, faithful to the original material, Soo-kee has been planted there by a con man on a mission to persuade the wealthy Hideko to marry him, with the ultimate intention of having her committed to an asylum. ![]() Visually glorious and languidly paced, the film utterly seduced me as young Soo-kee, magnificently played by newcomer Kim Tae-ri, was sent to the remote estate of an aristocratic book collector, as maid to his niece Hideko. ![]() But as The Handmaiden had transposed Waters' narrative from nineteenth century England to 1930s Japanese occupied Korea, I was prepared for a radically different retelling and that is what was delivered. When a favourite book is adapted there is inevitably a sense of disappointment on finding the screen version doesn't live up to that conjured in the mind of the reader. ![]() Had I needed further incentive to see Park's film, which had an impressive 95% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the the critics were gushing with a chorus of praise, dubbing it a 'masterpiece', 'intoxicating' and 'an erotic triumph.' Being a huge fan of Sarah Waters I was curious about The Handmaiden, Park Chan-wook's adaptation of her novel Fingersmith, a particular favourite of mine. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |