There’s no denying how significant The Handmaiden is, especially with regards to Asian LGBTQ+ cinema. As our recent Pride 2024 series demonstrates, queer films in Asia, before the mid-2000s at least, operated under strict conservatism and censorship (political, cultural, and, in some cases, religious) that often made it difficult for them to explicitly define themselves as “queer.” Not unlike in the West, it would take decades for LGBTQ+ stories in Asian cinema to break into the mainstream. In South Korea specifically, queer visibility in cinema went through three stages: The Invisible Age (1945-1997); The Camouflage Age (1998-2004); and The Blockbuster Age (2005-present).
As such, when a renowned director like Park Chan-wook comes along and decides to make an unapologetically lesbian romance-thriller, there’s no way it could go unnoticed or, as was the fate of countless queer films before it, suppressed to underground cinema markets. In fact, one need only look at The Handmaiden’s critical and box office success — from playing at large film festivals to winning BAFTAs to grossing almost five times its budget — to see just how mainstream and successful it was. Queer audiences in particular embraced Park’s film; in addition to the front-and-centre love affair between the two women, the overall intrigue proved that queerness could also exist in other genres as well.
This is why, in joining The Asian Cut’s retrospective series on Park Chan-wook, I jumped at the chance to write about The Handmaiden. Many of my queer friends and colleagues have raved about the film, so there was no better time to check it off my to-watch list than now. And while I can appreciate the film as a taut, well-crafted thriller, there’s no shaking the fact that this film was very clearly directed by a straight man.
Adapted from Fingersmith by Welsh novelist Sarah Waters, The Handmaiden is set in Japan-occupied Korea and follows Count Fujiwara (Ha Jung-woo), a professional con man, who has his eyes set on the inheritance of Lady Izumi Hideko (Kim Min-hee). He devises a plan to seduce her, steal her away from her Uncle Kouzuki (Cho Jin-woong), marry her, and then later have her committed so that he can keep the money for himself. To help with the seduction, Count Fujiwara enlists the help of a pickpocket named Nam Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri), who gains a position in Kouzuki’s estate as one of Lady Hideko’s handmaidens. But as Sook-hee finds herself in Hideko’s close quarters, she can’t help but develop an attraction to her, which turns heated when the feelings are reciprocated.
Waters’ novel was originally set in Victorian-era Britain with all-British characters, and Park keeps the Gothic aesthetics alive in his adaptation. But how he translates this story and time period to Korea makes for a fascinating watch, keeping in line with his affinity as a filmmaker for crime stories that find ways to get under your skin. Indeed, the film has all the trademarks of a great thriller: secrets withheld and then revealed, double-crossings and sleight-of-hand narrative tricks, and deeply unnerving character histories. Even the romance is interesting to watch, as these two women, each trapped in differing though no less suffocating circumstances, find solace in each other.
Frankly, it’s the sex that gives me pause, specifically, how it is executed.
As the film progresses, Kouzuki’s grand estate feels more and more like a creepy dollhouse, with Lady Hideko as a grown-up version of a doll (she even sleeps with a toy that bears a striking resemblance to herself). Park, in fact, establishes Hideko’s riches with drawers upon drawers and wardrobes upon wardrobes stuffed with all kinds of expensive clothing, all of which we can safely assume have been provided for her by her uncle.
When the film flashes back to Hideko’s childhood, and we see how involved Kouzuki was in her up-bringing (from her education to her dress) — and, more importantly, how it was all done with the eventual goal of making her a spectacle for creepy, rich men for whom she would read erotic novels aloud — there’s the suggestion that she, like a Barbie, was raised solely for “play” and performance. In her own way, Hideko, too, would mirror this behaviour with Sook-hee: at the beginning of the young handmaiden’s employ, she becomes like a doll for Hideko, someone she dresses up in her own clothing for amusement. (Separately, though no less similarly, Sook-hee herself is also Fujiwara’s doll, dressed as a maid for his own game.)
This renders Hideko and Sook-hee’s sex scenes nothing more than a straight man’s girl-on-girl fantasy. Certainly, there’s something to be said about how Park doesn’t shy away from showing sapphic sex on-screen, especially considering Korea’s (and, at large, Asia’s) anti-LGBTQ+ history. However, when Sook-hee first gazes upon Hideko’s “jade gate” (a euphemism from Kouzuki’s erotic novels), she calls it “mesmerizing” (a word that the film firmly establishes as one a man would use when courting a woman). What’s more, the sex Hideko and Sook-hee engage in are distinctly acts the former has read in her uncle’s novels.
In the years since The Handmaiden’s release, a lot of post-film discourse has embraced Hideko and Sook-hee’s sexual journey as one of self-realization and a reclamation of power, each woman seemingly going against the rules and roles enforced upon them and discovering their own truths. And yet, how they have sex has effectively been copied from stories written by men. In short, it’s difficult to not divorce their romance from at least partially perpetuating the male fantasies of lesbianism that traumatized Hideko.
It also doesn’t help that Park takes a decidedly moist approach to it — from the use of lollipops to sweeten kisses to bodily discharges on the face — which could be seen as an honest depiction of sex, but, because he’s a man directing two women “getting it on” based on excerpts from novels clearly meant for men to consume and enjoy, it unfortunately doesn’t feel that much different from a lot of pornography online designed for male pleasure.
Perhaps The Handmaiden is a case of authentic voices being needed to tell authentic stories. This isn’t to say Park was necessarily the wrong director for this film; indeed, he otherwise crafts a beautifully exciting film here. Nevertheless, stepping back even further, the actresses themselves are sort of like dolls for Park, costumed in clothing meant to entice and sexualize. Evidently, the women, on-screen and off, are playing roles designed for them by the men in their lives.
