The Handmaiden: Korean version of Fingersmith. Remember to watch the director's cut

In South Korea, the presentation of sex scenes is shot with its own styles. Erotic shots in South Korea are with oriental aesthetics and Asian eroticism, in particular, the background setting in a turbulent war era, when people wore clothes with cultural features. The Handmaiden is a 19+ film, involving a lot of erotic content. It's TOP250 on the IMDb list, and it's worth watching. The article contains spoilers.

The film is adapted from the novel Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, a writer from Britain. It tells that in the Victorian era, a teenage girl who grows up among thieves deliberately approaches an aristocratic heiress, but they do develop a genuine affection. I love this story. The two female protagonists have their own schemes, deceiving and plotting against each other. However, they gradually fall in love, and then finally get rid of villains, becoming free again. They live a happy life together as nicely as a fairy tale.

The BBC once made this novel into a Teleplay which involve 3 episodes, and the script is relatively faithful to the original. The film is an adaptation of the novel. It sets the story in the modern times of South Korea, when Japan dominated it. But the characters and plots are well constructed, telling a story between a Japanese noble and a Korean maid. The first two parts of the film are not much different from the TV version of the BBC. It tells, from the perspective of the maid and the young lady, two protagonists' background, being together and escaping.

The BBC version is in line with the culture background of the original. Moreover, this version is 3 hours long. So, in terms of emotional description, its time is enough to describe the delicate emotional changes, especially in the first part of the story when the two gradually fall in love. Like the novel, the film follows a three-paragraph narrative. However, the director deletes all the plots in the original work that clarify the development of the story through the characters' confessions. Waters herself also expresses that The Handmaiden is not an "adaptation", but a completely different work.

The Handmaiden doesn't focus on feelings. Its main tone is suspense, which leads to the conspiracy accounting more length. Therefore, the length of the love story is little and could only be alternated, in order to tell the story of the conspiracy clearly. As a result, the scenes referring to the heroine's emotional part are cut like scattered puzzles, and the audiences themselves could only put them together into an emotional line. Besides, many of the shots are deleted due to the length of time. The delicate and discontinuous shots limit the emotional development, and it is difficult to create a lingering feeling. Therefore, the romance of the two heroines will inevitably make people feel a little abrupt, because there are a few scenes that cause chemical reactions, and the development is as fast as riding a rocket.

In the story, Fujiwara intrigues Hideko and Sookee, Hideko intrigues Sookee, and Sookee intrigues Hideko. The two heroines change from calculating each other to being frank with each other, and they act together to counteract Fujiwara and the uncle.

In the first part, the liar who pretends to be the "Count" makes a deal with the maid Sookee. The deal is to make the young Lady Hideko falls in love with the liar. Afterwards, the maid could get all clothes, jewelry and shoes of the young lady, plus 100,000.So, Sookee comes to serve the lady, for the sake of wealth. But she eliminates her vigilance because she thinks the lady is pure. She even develops a different affection for the beautiful young lady.

In the second part, the young Lady Hideko who is treated as "ignorant" by Sookee is actually not simple. She has a better understanding of the most primitive nature of men, by "reading" the dirty books. She also makes a deal with the liar for freedom, which is to lure a maid. After eloping with a liar for a "fake marriage", she will send the maid to a mental hospital, pretending the maid is she. Then, she will live the life as the maid. However, Hideko falls in love with her when she gets along with the maid. Because the maid is not good at disguising, and she treats her sincerely. And she feels being moved by the maid, after her mother and aunt are dead, she is threatened by the perverted uncle, and she gets sick of pleasing men by reading dirty books.

In the third part, the maid and the lady decide to use the liar and escape from the dark mansion, gaining wealth and freedom.The liar and the wretched uncle don't end well either!

The director Park Chan-wook controls and sculptures the film well, making it more than exquisite. The scenes are beautiful, the camera scheduling is smooth, and the emotions are sensitive and delicate. The film is full of the hormones, involving flesh and money, the desire and the conspiracy. The film is like a fragile porcelain, but it is full of lethality like the opium.

The director's cut of the film is 26 minutes longer than the theatrical version. Not too many plots are added in the 26 minutes, but there are many details. In the extended version, the details of Hideko's vomiting after reading the book are added. It shows more about Sookee's shots when she first rummages through boxes in the lady's room. Besides, it involves the scenes that other impolite maids apologize to Sookee, and that Sookee is trained to be a maid. In the second part of the story from the perspective of Hideko, Hideko's eyes are shown more, so the explanation and subversion to the content of the first part are more thoroughly.

The theatrical version develops the story faster, but since you want to watch it, why not just watch the fullest version? Furthermore, it is unnecessary to watch the film for the second time, as the film is so long.