WATCH: PARK CHAN-WOOK IS A CREEPY CINEMATIC GENIUS IN ‘THE HANDMAIDEN’ TRAILER AND WE LOVE IT
Park Chan-Wook takes Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith to new heights with reverse white washing, a period drama setting and crazy BDSM shenanigans.
The acclaimed South Korean director is no stranger to wonderfully messed up thrillers filled with sacrilegious violence, ruthless revenge plots, priests-turned-vampires and breathtaking cinematography like Oldboy (2003), Thirst (2009) and Stoker (2013). In The Handmaiden trailer, it’s clear he’s back at it again with his daring challenging of cinematic conventions in yet another insane thrill ride.
What makes the trailer so brilliant is that it’s cleverly – and beautifully – edited, with so many fast paced transitions between shots that it doesn’t actually give away much of the film. Not much can be inferred from the trailer except that it most likely centres on the relationship between two women and the secrecy that shrouds their characters, which when revealed may lead to chaotic scenes of obsession, revenge and lust.
There’s nothing overtly grotesque about The Handmaiden, but the way the trailer is constructed calls attention to an underlying sense of wrongness that can’t be described or ignored. We're teased with quick glimpses of two women spying on each other in darkened rooms, sensual scenes of them together, arresting scenes of Korea in the 1930s, a man violently suffocating the faces of two women, haunting portraits of ancestors, BDSM, and an eye looking through a peephole. Most people would think, ‘What the hell did I just watch?’ But I personally think this trailer is so refreshing because it’s ultimately a spoiler-free venture into a gorgeous, stylistic film that keeps us on our toes.
All I know is that when The Handmaiden is unleashed in our cinemas in October, I’ll be the first to see it.
IMDB Synopsis:
A woman is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, but secretly she is involved in a plot to defraud her.
