GLITCH Film Festival Handmaiden

Set in 1930s era Korea, under Japanese colonial rule, in a mansion house with an extensive pornographic library…

“You know what’s expected of a maid like you?” young Sook-Hee is told as she is introduced as handmaiden to secluded heiress, Lady Hideko. In fact her role is duplicitous as she is a pick-pocket accomplice to a con-man plotting to defraud Lady Hideko of her inheritance. What do you see when you take a curious and forbidden look? Doorways, screens, bushes, keyholes - the visually sumptuous gaze of this erotic thriller introduces us to a complex of characters all pursuing their own secret agendas.

Handmaiden | Dir. Park Chan-Wook | 145 mins | South Korea | 2016

Film is fully subtitled for deaf and hard of hearing audience members. Post-screening discussion has BSL.

This film is F-rated. Films are given an F-rating if directed by women, written by women and/or present significant female characters on screen, in their own right. f-rated.org.