Critics reviews

On its surface, The Handmaiden is an intoxicating study of duality and code-switching, a theatre played with the ropes that rig society to elevate the few and subjugate the many. It's a meditation on power and desire, porn and performance. But more than this: its a brilliantly dark ode to women's desire and autonomy: a subject that remains as pressing today as it was a century ago.

It's almost like there's a fuzzy line being drawn between bad erotica (here, written works and readings for the benefit of men) and good erotica (here, sex between two women, as presented to us by a male filmmaker). This might have made more sense in Sarah Walters' original novel Fingersmith, where the two kinds of erotica would both be literary, and the women's stuff would actually be written by a woman. But we enjoyed it — my God, the design is fantastic.

Park visibly rules his cinematic kingdom with imperial autonomy, cooking up a hyper-elaborate plot and mounting it on spectacular sets, designed by Ryu Seong-hee, of extraordinary beauty and intricacy. The sprawling, oppressive dwelling of wicked uncle Kouzuki is a Wellesian Xanadu, and creating it on screen in all its palatial complexity is in itself a statement of triumphantly unrestrained auteurial power.

The film could fairly be described as self-indulgent, but every new outrageous act, every shot that pans over silks or furniture or naked bodies, feels like a wry wink... In The Handmaiden, sex itself is a con, luring us into the narrative and then complicating it more than we might expect.

This really should rank as my number one, I was so taken with this movie's ambition, going beyond a thriller (this is Park Chan-wook -- he's going to go above and beyond -- I'm pretty certain he's a genius at this point), but the gothic power, eroticism, violence, delicious perversity and romanticism of this picture might make this his greatest work. And that's saying a lot.

A fetishistic delight, this feminist melodrama from Park Chan-wook is filled with pleasurable plot twists and lots of hearty laughs, often at the expense of dim and outfoxed men. Are the vagina POV shots a film first?

Park is in a difficult position with this material, in that he needs to create authentic eroticism with the sex scenes and yet avoid accusations of exploitation, a position in which at least some critics would inevitably judge him harshly. The most obvious recent comparison is La Vie d'Adèle, which was similarly criticised7 but which I likewise feel was able to bring a genuine erotic charge to the material that is integral to the film's overall success as drama.

This year we've been presented with one of the best pieces of queer cinema – and indeed one of the best pieces of cinema this side of Brokeback Mountain. Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden is not only an exquisite piece of storytelling, it's also a miraculous revelation: the blinding of the male gaze while depicting a uniquely female experience is apparently entirely achievable, and perhaps even more surprising, obscenely sexy.

Much like Park Chan-wook's earlier films Oldboy (2003), Lady Vengeance (2005), and Thirst (2009), The Handmaiden exploits the presumption of innocence in others, cannily redistributing knowledge and guilt throughout the film's cascade of kinks and crimes. This cognitive switch from presumed innocence to knowing complicity is paradigmatic for Park, and he stages it ever more deftly with each film he makes.

Park gives the story an elegant makeover. It remains a Dickensian crime drama involving a long con, a lesbian awakening, and a series of whomping double-crosses, but the action is cleaner, with no Cockney blowsiness to cloud it. A cold, tranquil, lush estate serves as the backdrop. In fits like electric brownouts that make the mansion flicker, it becomes clear that the meticulous rooms conceal dark pathologies. The ordered allure of "The Handmaiden" is something of a sleight of hand.

Park co-opts sensual soft-core lore of old to enact revenge on power hungry men (the audience included) who would get off feeling dominant over the fairer sex. The Handmaiden ultimately provides a safe space for women to reclaim imagery associated with kinky male fantasies and turn them into something intimate, all on their own terms. Park's film may be silly and slight, but it often strikes the right nerve.

Whatever you make of Park's newfound allegiance to feminism, The Handmaiden is unassailably a film aligned with female desire. As for the improbability of the film's much-remarked-upon depiction of graphic lesbian sex acts as directed by a male filmmaker, I'd say that's entirely the point. Aside from fitting comfortably within Park's usual over-the-top tone, The Handmaiden explicitly broaches the subject of erotic fiction, simultaneously skewering and delighting in overwrought purple prose.