Lady Hideko and Sook-hee in Ah-ga-ssi (The Handmaiden).
Lies, deception, crazy men and hot lesbian sex. What more could you ask from a movie? Throw Oldeuboi’s (Oldboy) director Park Chan-wook into the mix and everything gets a whole lot more interesting in this Korean adaptation of Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith, now known as Ah-ga-ssi (The Handmaiden).
The setting shifts from Victorian England to 1930s Korea, where we find young pickpocket Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri) who, upon being hired by con man Count Fujiwara (Ha Jung-woo), enters an aristocrat’s manor as its new maid.
Sook-hee is instructed to help Fujiwara’s seduction of the heiress Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee), a porcelain faced woman who seems disturbed. The plan is to get the lady to fall in love with Fujiwara — who is posing as her art teacher — so that they can get married. Fujiwara plans to put Hideko in a mental institution and seize her inheritance. The plan seems to be going well, except for one small glitch no one could’ve foreseen: The heiress and her handmaiden are falling in love with one another.
The film is divided into three acts in which the first is told from Sook-hee’s perspective, the second from Hideko and the third part concludes the fate of those involved — the fate of two women that become entangled due to the devious acts of men.
Along the way, we learn that Hideko is very much a prisoner in her own home; kept on a leash by her creepy uncle Kouzuki (Cho Jin-woong). And, boy, is he a sick one. This Korean aristocrat could very much find his own spot in a Marquis de Sade’s S&M shenanigans and doesn’t feel out of place in the least.
At times, the characters are on the verge of descending into madness, or perhaps they’re already there. In the end, the two ladies struggle to emerge from the snake pit of misfortune and turn tables around on the men.
Then there are the sex scenes. This is something we just can’t not talk about as it’s all anyone will want to talk about after watching the movie: the arduous, excessive, slightly absurd and yet strangely mesmerising lesbian sex. What’s not to love, really? But we’re at a divide here.
The two actresses clearly didn’t shy away from the physical proximity of their entwined bodies and we didn’t mind it. Bring on whatever you have in mind — “69”, “the scissors”, kinky sex toys — and don’t forget the eroticised bath scene.
Yet, at the same time, the overdone girl-on-girl love scenes seems more like an exploitation of straight men’s wildest fantasy that almost leaves Hideko and Sook-hee’s intimacy — and their relationship — as just pure lust rather than an expression of love as it should be. It’s quite a reminder of the lesbian sex in the French film La vie d’Adèle (Blue Is The Warmest Colour), another work from a straight male director dealing with lesbianism.
How is homosexuality represented in films under the helm of straight people, and how does that differ from LGBT films made by LGBTs themselves? Try watching Todd Haynes’ Carol from last year.
Fans of director Park from his violent Vengeance trilogy will probably be satisfied and satiated. The set and costumes are lavish and detailed, and the cinematography immaculate. The violence is however, toned down from the iconic hallway hammer-fight of Oldboy. There are still random absurd moments of dark humour the director is known for. And the man sure loves his twists in the tale.
Try your best to erase your knowledge of the source material — both the Fingersmith book and its BBC miniseries — or it will take away the impact of the twists, though not by much.
Park’s adaptation of the story has its own unpredictability. And while it’s still largely the same story, there are points where this new interpretation takes its own direction and charges ahead without so much as a look behind.
Ah-ga-ssi (The Handmaiden)
Starring Kim Min-hee, Kim Tae-ri, Ha Jung-woo and Cho Jin-woong. Directed by Park Chan-wook.In Korean with English and Thai subtitles.
This source first appeared on Bangkok Post Lifestyle.