The Handmaiden

Chan-Wook's long-awaited return to the Korean film scene is unfortunately overlong and heavy on intellectual (and literal) stroking. It makes for a helluva conversation piece at parties and, in retrospect, I find there are a lot of aspects I enjoyed. But as an experience it was kinda tedious, and the characters felt too cold for my liking. It's a pity, because I get the impression that this flick strives to be a sort of synthesis of the themes he usually preoccupies himself with. IE revenge, lust, voyeurism, the ugliness of how men treat women etc. But the way in which the story checks off these boxes almost felt perfunctory to me. Not to mention that the whole affair felt permeated by a sense of humour that made me unsure as to whether or not to take any of it seriously. Still, if you wanna get your intellect stroked, I doubt you'll find another flick in theaters with such pretensions to intellectual grandeur. Or one so full of sweaty, jumbled limbs and gasping mouths.