아가씨 (The Handmaiden). 2016. South Korea. Directed by Park Chan-wook. Screenplay by Park Chan-wook, Jeong Seo-kyung. Based on the novel Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. With Kim Min-hee, Kim Tae-ri, Ha Jung-woo, Cho Jin-woong. In Korean; English subtitles. 145 min.
Transposing Sarah Waters’s Victorian thriller to 1930s Korea under Japanese occupation, Park Chan-wook crafts his most intricate narrative puzzle—a three-part baroque of deception in which every revelation reshapes our understanding of what came before. Kim Tae-ri (selected from 1,500 auditions) plays a pickpocket hired to assist a con man (Ha Jung-woo) in seducing a wealthy Japanese heiress (Kim Min-hee). What begins as a straightforward swindle transforms into something far more subversive as the women discover unexpected solidarity against the patriarchal forces that seek to control them. Cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon creates a sumptuous visual tapestry, while Park’s precisely calibrated shifts in perspective allow the same scenes to acquire entirely different meanings. Winner of the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language, The Handmaiden represents Park’s work at its most formally audacious and emotionally resonant.