Monday, March 13, 2017

The Handmaiden - Sunday 19th March 5pm

In this season of varied genres, styles and countries, it is the turn of South Korea to bring you a twisting, turning melodramatic and, yes, erotic thriller: The Handmaiden is "a great big chocolate box of a movie in which a rich and satisfying narrative is enlivened by some piquant erotica and the sharp tang of politics" – Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail.

Filmed in three acts, each bringing the view from a different character, we see Sookee (the Handmaiden) helping Count Fujiwara to entice Hideko to marry him...but maybe none of this is really what is really going on. Meanwhile Sookee and Hideko are falling in love. Set in Japanese occupied Korea in the 1930s, where Koreans are pretending to be Japanese... "Perhaps not since 'Pulp Fiction' have I seen such a cleverly convoluted story woven together from different perspectives. Act two and three pile on more layers of detail, adding more richness to the story. What seems like a simple tale of greed and betrayal becomes something more in act two and three and there is an ample supply of satisfying comeuppance as well" – Robert Roten, Laramie Movie Scope. Oh...and did I mention the eroticism..?