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Review: The Handmaiden (아가씨) (2016)
I had high hopes for this movie and did not disappoint. I think my favourite part about this movie was just how gracefully the story unfolded. Most espionage stories have a certain formula, where things aren't what they seem, and yet I still found myself surprised and in awe each step of the way. I would definitely recommend this movie, but put a warning for sexual and violent content.
Spoilers.
Story
Part 1 was about Count Fujiwara and Sook-hee working together to lure Hideko into their trap. This part was mostly from Sook-hee's point of view, of how she started to fall in love with Hideko and how she tried to convince herself that she was just there for the money. This part ended with the Sook-hee being thrown into the mental hospital.
Part 2 went back in time and was from Hideko's point of view. We realize that Hideko wasn't as naive as we all thought, and that she'd struck up a deal with Fujiwara to use Sook-hee to get out. We also learned more about the extent of Hideko's "reading" for her uncle. From youth, she was trained to read porn to men who'd bid on porn books, and occasionally it seems she'd have to partake in sadistic and masochostic activities as well. However, despite Hideko's coldness, she also found herself falling in love with Sook-hee. Though perhaps she didn't put a "love" label on it, she recognized the sincerity from the books she'd read, and they surprised her because no one had ever treated her so gently before. At the end of part 2, Hideko and Sook-hee reconciled. Before they ran away, Hideko revealed to Sook-hee what she'd been doing for her uncle. Sook-hee destroyed all of the porn books, and Hideko was incredibly moved, calling Sook-hee her saviour.
Part 3 was more of a wrap-up. Sook-hee broke out of the mental hospital with the help of her family, who had no issues with her turning on Fujiwara. Meanwhile, Hideko drugged Fujiwara and returned him to her uncle, who was furious over all of his lost books, and tortured Fujiwara while trying to get details of him having sex with Hideko. However, Fujiwara had been smoking cigarettes laced with mercury and so both he and the uncle died. Meanwhile, Sook-hee and Hideko met up and successfully fled to Shanghai.
It was a surprisingly wholesome ending considering the tone of the whole movie, but I quite liked it. If it was a grim ending, I think I would've been quite haunted for weeks to come, but this way, it wrapped up the story very nicely.
Like I said, while the story in this movie wasn't particularly trailblazing, it still managed to surprise me because of how it was told. I don't really have the intellectual mindset to explain why it surprised me, but I will attempt to do so.
First of all, I think the pacing helped keep us in the moment. In part 1, I was so invested in Sook-hee's feelings that I was taken off guard when Hideko finally showed signs of doing something that was completely off script. This was probably the most significant plot twist of the movie.
Another reason why I think the story was told well was because espionage works better when we don't have an omniscient narrator. Hideko and Sook-hee were explicitly narrating their own parts, so I feel like it led me away from trying to look at everything too objectively, and instead just focused on the feelings.
Production
Cinematography
As usual, the cinematography was beautiful and I wouldn't expect anything less from Park Chan-wook. Part of the reason was the beautiful house and decor, but obviously the frame was filled up in a way that was very aesthetically pleasing.
Acting
The acting was decent. I did think that Hideko's actress was a little colder, but I think that was the point, because she was raised to be calculating to protect herself. Even by the end, Hideko seemed cold, but it felt more like she was being cold to protect Sook-hee, and not cold to protect herself.
As for Sook-hee's actress, it was interesting how over the course of the film, I felt like her character's naivete became more and more apparent. I'm not sure if this was part of the acting, or whether it was helped by the directing, but either way, well done.
Content warning
I knew this movie was going to have sexual content and Wikipedia calls it an erotic psychological thriller, so I was expecting sexytimes. There was some violence towards the end in the scene where Fujiwara was being tortured, and I had to look away.
Characters
Sook-hee
Sook-hee started off appearing to the audience as a smart girl who was doing what she was doing to make a living. Her goal was to get money out of this deal and to dip forever. During part 1, I think we saw that maybe Sook-hee was "rougher" around the edges than we thought. She liked pretty things but wasn't refined in education, but because of that, she was sincere.
As mentioned, during part 2, Sook-hee appeared to the audience as even more naive and sincere, almost child-like (more on this later), but again, sincere.
Hideko
On the other hand, Hideko started off appearing naive and innocent to us in part 1. She seemed kind but a little afraid because she was surrounded by evil. We only realized something was up at the end of part 1, when Sook-hee was forced into the mental hospital.
We learned of the true Hideko in part 2. She eavesdropped on Kouzuki and Fujiwara's conversations, and I think we're meant to understand that Hideko was always in the know about what happened in the house. She was raised from childhood to read pornography for the purpose of porn auctions. In brief flashes, I think we're also meant to understand that she was prostituted out by her uncle to those who attended the auctions, whether it was for sex or participating in sado-masochistic activities, obviously neither of which she had any say in. So we were led to believe that Hideko only had survival on her mind, and Fujiwara's appearance finally gave her an out, which she would take.
But towards the end of part 2, she found herself faltering a bit when it came to Sook-hee. She noticed the little things about Sook-hee, just like Sook-hee did for her, whether things about her body, or just how they looked at or touched one another. Hideko had even considered breaking off the deal with Fujiwara because she didn't want to lie to or hurt Sook-hee anymore.
Hideko got angry when Sook-hee continued to convince her to marry Fujiwara. In a fit of rage she pushed Sook-hee away and then proceeded to hang herself, only to be saved by Sook-hee. That was when Sook-hee and Hideko reconciled and presumably that was when they plotted their plan of action.
After leaving Sook-hee at the mental hospital, Hideko continued to act cold, confident, and cool. Honestly, the true Sook-hee was like this, even when she was striking up a deal with Fujiwara, but we just spent so much time seeing Hideko act that it was unusual to see her as her true self 100% of the time.
That being said, she was still very in love with Sook-hee, and the two got their happy ending :3
Fujiwara
Fujiwara was a con man. Apparently he'd spent 15 years learning Japanese in Japan and spent some more years learning forgery and bookbinding in order to get close to Kouzuki and Hideko.
It's unclear how Fujiwara knew Sook-hee's friends and family, but I guess they were "in the same line of business." In any case, Fujiwara cared a lot more about Hideko's money than he cared about doing well by his Korean comrades.
Fujiwara never deluded anybody about falling in love with Hideko. Even when he and Hideko were putting on a show of seduction, he always clarified that he was after her for her money, which made sense considering how much time he spent honing his skills to look like a Japanese Count.
In part 1, it was kind of strange how blatantly poor Fujiwara's seductive advances to Hideko were. It made it really hard to believe that Hideko would fall in love with him, and yet Hideko confided in Sook-hee that she was going to elope with him. It only made sense in part 2 when we realized that Fujiwara was just putting on a show and he was having fun with it because he didn't really need to seduce Hideko.
I didn't necessarily think that Fujiwara was an evil guy. I can't say for sure whether I thought he deserved his end, but I think he got the end he wanted, all things considered (i.e. being tortured). Being a conman himself, I think he wasn't really mad at Hideko, because he knew that that was just how things were in the world of swindling. But he wasn't going to let Kouzuki get the better of him, and so dying by his own terms was as good as he could get it.
Kouzuki
To put it simply, I'd say that Kouzuki was a weirdo pervert. He was apparently married to Sasaki, who I guess was Korean? But he broke it off with her to marry a Japanese woman of lower nobility, who was Hideko's aunt. Hideko's aunt had taken Hideko in because Hideko's mom had died while giving birth. Any time Hideko's aunt tried to show care or love to Hideko, she was reprimanded by Kouzuki.
Hideko's aunt used to do the porn readings until she couldn't handle the abuse anymore and hung herself. It was later revealed that she was actually murdered by Kouzuki in his torture chamber. So from a young age, Hideko had feared her uncle.
Kouzuki had two uses for Hideko. One was her money. Despite raising her, Kouzuki was engaged to marry her so that he could access her money. The reason why he wanted money was to buy more porn books. He had a gold mine and he was going to sell that too for porn. His other use for Hideko was to read porn at the auctions. From a young age, he had her take reading lessons. At first, they seemed very simple, but over the course of the movie, we saw that as a child she had to read very explicit sexual content, which I think is considered a form of sexual abuse. But Kouzuki didn't care. He was a weirdo pervert.
At the end of the movie, Kouzuki obviously came back to his entire book collection ruined and needed answers for it. Kouzuki had received a letter from Hideko along with Fujiwara. Kouzuki had no choice but to take out his anger on Fujiwara. While torturing him, Kouzuki tried to get details on Fujiwara about how he had sex with Hideko. He didn't have his porn collection anymore so he was trying to get whatever he could get his hands on. Fujiwara kept it short because he was disgusted with Kouzuki, either because of his porn addition or the fact that he cared about how his niece was having sex. Kouzuki got the end he needed and deserved. He was portrayed as not only a pervert but also a traitor to the Koreans (and even to his own wife Sasaki).
Themes
Snake
A "snake of knowledge" was placed at the front of the basement. I think both Hideko and Kouzuki were supposed to be snakes of some sort.
Hideko's tooth was cutting into her mouth and Sook-hee helped to smooth it down (though I'm not sure if that's a thing?). In any case, I think it was a sign of Sook-hee dulling Hideko's fangs, showing that Hideko was softening towards Sook-hee despite knowing that Sook-hee was only supposed to be used.
As for Kouzuki, he was always wetting his brush with his tongue, so his tongue was always black, kind of like poison. Sook-hee and Hideko destroyed his book collection and cut off the head of the snake. I think destroying his book collection was their way of incapacitating him. Now that he had no more porn, he felt helpless and powerless, and that was Sook-hee and Hideko's way of cutting off the head of this snake.
Dolls
There was some objectification going on during this film, even between Sook-hee and Hideko. Obviously Kouzuki and Fujiwara didn't see the women as anything other than tools to be used and thrown away.
Kouzuki even had Hideko act out sexual positions in place of some of the pictures in the porn that were ripped out. She was literally his sex doll (yikes).
When Sook-hee was helping Hideko with her clothes, she said that ladies were the dolls of their maids, comparing herself to a girl who was playing dressup with a doll. At this point in the movie, we also knew that Sook-hee was manipulating her lady, trying to gain her trust and push her to marry Fujiwara.
In part 2, young Hideko was often seen carrying her doll, and I think it was meant to imply that she'd also learned to manipulate people from a young age. The scene where Hideko had Sook-hee dress up symbolized the opposite take in which Hideko was manipulating Sook-hee, and she'd later use her to gain her freedom.
In that scene, both Hideko and Sook-hee were dressed up and had similar hairstyle. It was even a bit hard to tell them apart. Who was the lady? I think the point was that they were both manipulating each other.
Children
In part 1, Hideko was seen as very naive and child-like. She asked Sook-hee for sex advice because she didn't know anything. Hideko even called herself a baby because she had no mother, and she didn't have any education beyond learning to read porn. Sook-hee also treated Hideko like a child. Her reference for being a maid was her aunt, who'd been a nanny for a baby. Sook-hee had given Hideko a lollipop while giving her a bath, a practice her aunt had done to teach her charge that baths were supposed to be fun.
Again, in part 2, the roles were reversed. Hideko was a cold mastermind, and she'd specifically requested a naive maid, but she hadn't expected Sook-hee's naivete to be so charming. Sook-hee was surprised that Hideko was so good at sex and her only thought was that Hideko must've been a natural.
Love
Both Sook-hee and Hideko were playing a role when they met each other, and yet they still fell in love. I think the way they fell in love was through the sincerity that slipped through the cracks. Well, I think it was mostly coming from Sook-hee as she was not so good at acting, and Hideko was charmed by Sook-hee's sincerity, whether she was placating her when she was upset, or just trying to cuddle her and comfort her in general. This was by Hideko's own doing, by the way. She portrayed herself as someone who was super helpless, and I guess she just didn't expect a maid to treat her so gently.
Over time, I think Hideko wanted to reveal her true self to Sook-hee, which was how Sook-hee started to see the true Hideko.
I think their love was intensified with Fujiwara in the mix. He was trying to look like he was wooing Hideko, which made Sook-hee jealous. She had to make the decision of whether she'd betray Hideko or Fujiwara and swung violently from one side to the other but ended up betraying Fujiwara for love.
Pretenses
Near the beginning of the movie, Hideko told Sook-hee that she could steal from her, but never to lie to her. I'd heard this quote before, and I'd assumed that it was something said further in their relationship, so I was surprised to know that this was one of the first things that Hideko said to Sook-hee.
In Fujiwara and Hideko's wedding oath, he promised not to lie or steal. At that time, we had not known that Hideko was going to double cross Sook-hee, so it appeared that Fujiwara was both lying to her (about him not being a Japanese Count) and stealing from her (marrying for money).
In addition, Count Fujiwara's sexual advances towards Hideko were so bad that it was a surprise that Hideko fell for them, but later that pretense turned out to be a great way of hiding the "second truth" which was that Fujiwara and Hideko were working together.
Of course, Fujiwara, Sook-hee, and Hideko were all lying to one another. They were both working with two parties, it was just a matter of which was the truest of them all.
Sexual abuse
Before Kouzuki left for his gold mine, he reminded Hideko always to remember the basement. I thought it was a way for him to remind her of her "roots," seeing as how a basement was the bottom foundation of a building. In a way, it sort of was. Kouzuki raised Hideko on abuse and fear. The basement housed all of his books, which was the only reason Hideko had a "job," but the further basement, the torture chamber, was a reminder to Hideko that Kouzuki would not have mercy on her if she stepped out of line.
In part 2, it was interesting to see how despite being seen as a sexual object, Hideko always kept her wits about. As she read, she remembered what she'd done with each of the men sitting in on the auction. I guess she kept these secrets in case she ever needed them.
Repetion
Throughout the movie, various people would use the same words and phrases to describe things. Both Sook-hee and Hideko described Hideko as having no one else in the world. Both Kouzuki and Fujiwara described Hideko as fully ripe.
I think there are a couple of possible interpretations. One, like Hideko and Sook-hee's situation described, would be that everyone's always eavesdropping on one another. Kind of a reminder that this was an espionage film, and that your secrets were never truly secrets.
The other possible interpretation would be that the characters in the film were following a "script of life." Obviously as part of cons, Fujiwara, Sook-hee, and Hideko tended to use act and speak a certain way to elicit a certain reaction, or as a code word to one another.
Politics
Even today, there is an anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea due to their war crimes, and this film firmly pictured the Japanese as abusive and vile. Kouzuki, the Korean man who ditched his roots to become as Japanese as possible, was depicted as fully evil. He ditched his wife to marry a Japanese woman. He even told Fujiwara that he found Korea ugly and Japan beautiful.
Mirrors and windows
Park Chan-wook directed Stoker, one of my favourite movies that had beautiful cinematography. In particular, there was a frame involving a mirror that had a very big impact on me, so it piqued my interest when I saw his use of mirrors, screens, and windows in this movie.
I think like in Stoker, mirrors were a way to show that people were not what they seemed. Sometimes when Hideko, Sook-hee, and Fujiwara were in the same room, Fujiwara would look at Sook-hee in a mirror to send a secret message because he wasn't supposed to know her.
Sook-hee would spy on Hideko and Fujiwara in their private trysts. She was allowed to look at Fujiwara because to her, he was "in on it" with her, but she wasn't allowed to let herself be seen by Hideko, who actually knew that she was there but had to act like she was amorous with Fujiwara.
When Sook-hee and Fujiwara had their private meetings, they'd watch the screen for any spies. In addition, on Fujiwara and Hideko's "wedding night," they'd acted like they had sex through a screen, again for Sook-hee's benefit (though technically it was for Fujiwara's benefit as Hideko and Sook-hee were already reconciled by then).
Overall
This was a terrific movie. I thought my favourite part would've been the cinematography but I think now I know that I can also trust Park Chan-wook's works to have great scripts too. As I mentioned, the way the movie was written was great and kept me engaged 100% of the time, which I admit is a bit hard sometimes because I get easily distracted. But I literally never multi-tasked while watching this movie, perhaps because I knew the story was something special. Highly recommend this movie!
Spoilers.
Story
Part 1 was about Count Fujiwara and Sook-hee working together to lure Hideko into their trap. This part was mostly from Sook-hee's point of view, of how she started to fall in love with Hideko and how she tried to convince herself that she was just there for the money. This part ended with the Sook-hee being thrown into the mental hospital.
Part 2 went back in time and was from Hideko's point of view. We realize that Hideko wasn't as naive as we all thought, and that she'd struck up a deal with Fujiwara to use Sook-hee to get out. We also learned more about the extent of Hideko's "reading" for her uncle. From youth, she was trained to read porn to men who'd bid on porn books, and occasionally it seems she'd have to partake in sadistic and masochostic activities as well. However, despite Hideko's coldness, she also found herself falling in love with Sook-hee. Though perhaps she didn't put a "love" label on it, she recognized the sincerity from the books she'd read, and they surprised her because no one had ever treated her so gently before. At the end of part 2, Hideko and Sook-hee reconciled. Before they ran away, Hideko revealed to Sook-hee what she'd been doing for her uncle. Sook-hee destroyed all of the porn books, and Hideko was incredibly moved, calling Sook-hee her saviour.
Part 3 was more of a wrap-up. Sook-hee broke out of the mental hospital with the help of her family, who had no issues with her turning on Fujiwara. Meanwhile, Hideko drugged Fujiwara and returned him to her uncle, who was furious over all of his lost books, and tortured Fujiwara while trying to get details of him having sex with Hideko. However, Fujiwara had been smoking cigarettes laced with mercury and so both he and the uncle died. Meanwhile, Sook-hee and Hideko met up and successfully fled to Shanghai.
It was a surprisingly wholesome ending considering the tone of the whole movie, but I quite liked it. If it was a grim ending, I think I would've been quite haunted for weeks to come, but this way, it wrapped up the story very nicely.
Like I said, while the story in this movie wasn't particularly trailblazing, it still managed to surprise me because of how it was told. I don't really have the intellectual mindset to explain why it surprised me, but I will attempt to do so.
First of all, I think the pacing helped keep us in the moment. In part 1, I was so invested in Sook-hee's feelings that I was taken off guard when Hideko finally showed signs of doing something that was completely off script. This was probably the most significant plot twist of the movie.
Another reason why I think the story was told well was because espionage works better when we don't have an omniscient narrator. Hideko and Sook-hee were explicitly narrating their own parts, so I feel like it led me away from trying to look at everything too objectively, and instead just focused on the feelings.
Production
Cinematography
As usual, the cinematography was beautiful and I wouldn't expect anything less from Park Chan-wook. Part of the reason was the beautiful house and decor, but obviously the frame was filled up in a way that was very aesthetically pleasing.
Acting
The acting was decent. I did think that Hideko's actress was a little colder, but I think that was the point, because she was raised to be calculating to protect herself. Even by the end, Hideko seemed cold, but it felt more like she was being cold to protect Sook-hee, and not cold to protect herself.
As for Sook-hee's actress, it was interesting how over the course of the film, I felt like her character's naivete became more and more apparent. I'm not sure if this was part of the acting, or whether it was helped by the directing, but either way, well done.
Content warning
I knew this movie was going to have sexual content and Wikipedia calls it an erotic psychological thriller, so I was expecting sexytimes. There was some violence towards the end in the scene where Fujiwara was being tortured, and I had to look away.
Characters
Sook-hee
Sook-hee started off appearing to the audience as a smart girl who was doing what she was doing to make a living. Her goal was to get money out of this deal and to dip forever. During part 1, I think we saw that maybe Sook-hee was "rougher" around the edges than we thought. She liked pretty things but wasn't refined in education, but because of that, she was sincere.
As mentioned, during part 2, Sook-hee appeared to the audience as even more naive and sincere, almost child-like (more on this later), but again, sincere.
Hideko
On the other hand, Hideko started off appearing naive and innocent to us in part 1. She seemed kind but a little afraid because she was surrounded by evil. We only realized something was up at the end of part 1, when Sook-hee was forced into the mental hospital.
We learned of the true Hideko in part 2. She eavesdropped on Kouzuki and Fujiwara's conversations, and I think we're meant to understand that Hideko was always in the know about what happened in the house. She was raised from childhood to read pornography for the purpose of porn auctions. In brief flashes, I think we're also meant to understand that she was prostituted out by her uncle to those who attended the auctions, whether it was for sex or participating in sado-masochistic activities, obviously neither of which she had any say in. So we were led to believe that Hideko only had survival on her mind, and Fujiwara's appearance finally gave her an out, which she would take.
But towards the end of part 2, she found herself faltering a bit when it came to Sook-hee. She noticed the little things about Sook-hee, just like Sook-hee did for her, whether things about her body, or just how they looked at or touched one another. Hideko had even considered breaking off the deal with Fujiwara because she didn't want to lie to or hurt Sook-hee anymore.
Hideko got angry when Sook-hee continued to convince her to marry Fujiwara. In a fit of rage she pushed Sook-hee away and then proceeded to hang herself, only to be saved by Sook-hee. That was when Sook-hee and Hideko reconciled and presumably that was when they plotted their plan of action.
After leaving Sook-hee at the mental hospital, Hideko continued to act cold, confident, and cool. Honestly, the true Sook-hee was like this, even when she was striking up a deal with Fujiwara, but we just spent so much time seeing Hideko act that it was unusual to see her as her true self 100% of the time.
That being said, she was still very in love with Sook-hee, and the two got their happy ending :3
Fujiwara
Fujiwara was a con man. Apparently he'd spent 15 years learning Japanese in Japan and spent some more years learning forgery and bookbinding in order to get close to Kouzuki and Hideko.
It's unclear how Fujiwara knew Sook-hee's friends and family, but I guess they were "in the same line of business." In any case, Fujiwara cared a lot more about Hideko's money than he cared about doing well by his Korean comrades.
Fujiwara never deluded anybody about falling in love with Hideko. Even when he and Hideko were putting on a show of seduction, he always clarified that he was after her for her money, which made sense considering how much time he spent honing his skills to look like a Japanese Count.
In part 1, it was kind of strange how blatantly poor Fujiwara's seductive advances to Hideko were. It made it really hard to believe that Hideko would fall in love with him, and yet Hideko confided in Sook-hee that she was going to elope with him. It only made sense in part 2 when we realized that Fujiwara was just putting on a show and he was having fun with it because he didn't really need to seduce Hideko.
I didn't necessarily think that Fujiwara was an evil guy. I can't say for sure whether I thought he deserved his end, but I think he got the end he wanted, all things considered (i.e. being tortured). Being a conman himself, I think he wasn't really mad at Hideko, because he knew that that was just how things were in the world of swindling. But he wasn't going to let Kouzuki get the better of him, and so dying by his own terms was as good as he could get it.
Kouzuki
To put it simply, I'd say that Kouzuki was a weirdo pervert. He was apparently married to Sasaki, who I guess was Korean? But he broke it off with her to marry a Japanese woman of lower nobility, who was Hideko's aunt. Hideko's aunt had taken Hideko in because Hideko's mom had died while giving birth. Any time Hideko's aunt tried to show care or love to Hideko, she was reprimanded by Kouzuki.
Hideko's aunt used to do the porn readings until she couldn't handle the abuse anymore and hung herself. It was later revealed that she was actually murdered by Kouzuki in his torture chamber. So from a young age, Hideko had feared her uncle.
Kouzuki had two uses for Hideko. One was her money. Despite raising her, Kouzuki was engaged to marry her so that he could access her money. The reason why he wanted money was to buy more porn books. He had a gold mine and he was going to sell that too for porn. His other use for Hideko was to read porn at the auctions. From a young age, he had her take reading lessons. At first, they seemed very simple, but over the course of the movie, we saw that as a child she had to read very explicit sexual content, which I think is considered a form of sexual abuse. But Kouzuki didn't care. He was a weirdo pervert.
At the end of the movie, Kouzuki obviously came back to his entire book collection ruined and needed answers for it. Kouzuki had received a letter from Hideko along with Fujiwara. Kouzuki had no choice but to take out his anger on Fujiwara. While torturing him, Kouzuki tried to get details on Fujiwara about how he had sex with Hideko. He didn't have his porn collection anymore so he was trying to get whatever he could get his hands on. Fujiwara kept it short because he was disgusted with Kouzuki, either because of his porn addition or the fact that he cared about how his niece was having sex. Kouzuki got the end he needed and deserved. He was portrayed as not only a pervert but also a traitor to the Koreans (and even to his own wife Sasaki).
Themes
Snake
A "snake of knowledge" was placed at the front of the basement. I think both Hideko and Kouzuki were supposed to be snakes of some sort.
Hideko's tooth was cutting into her mouth and Sook-hee helped to smooth it down (though I'm not sure if that's a thing?). In any case, I think it was a sign of Sook-hee dulling Hideko's fangs, showing that Hideko was softening towards Sook-hee despite knowing that Sook-hee was only supposed to be used.
As for Kouzuki, he was always wetting his brush with his tongue, so his tongue was always black, kind of like poison. Sook-hee and Hideko destroyed his book collection and cut off the head of the snake. I think destroying his book collection was their way of incapacitating him. Now that he had no more porn, he felt helpless and powerless, and that was Sook-hee and Hideko's way of cutting off the head of this snake.
Dolls
There was some objectification going on during this film, even between Sook-hee and Hideko. Obviously Kouzuki and Fujiwara didn't see the women as anything other than tools to be used and thrown away.
Kouzuki even had Hideko act out sexual positions in place of some of the pictures in the porn that were ripped out. She was literally his sex doll (yikes).
When Sook-hee was helping Hideko with her clothes, she said that ladies were the dolls of their maids, comparing herself to a girl who was playing dressup with a doll. At this point in the movie, we also knew that Sook-hee was manipulating her lady, trying to gain her trust and push her to marry Fujiwara.
In part 2, young Hideko was often seen carrying her doll, and I think it was meant to imply that she'd also learned to manipulate people from a young age. The scene where Hideko had Sook-hee dress up symbolized the opposite take in which Hideko was manipulating Sook-hee, and she'd later use her to gain her freedom.
In that scene, both Hideko and Sook-hee were dressed up and had similar hairstyle. It was even a bit hard to tell them apart. Who was the lady? I think the point was that they were both manipulating each other.
Children
In part 1, Hideko was seen as very naive and child-like. She asked Sook-hee for sex advice because she didn't know anything. Hideko even called herself a baby because she had no mother, and she didn't have any education beyond learning to read porn. Sook-hee also treated Hideko like a child. Her reference for being a maid was her aunt, who'd been a nanny for a baby. Sook-hee had given Hideko a lollipop while giving her a bath, a practice her aunt had done to teach her charge that baths were supposed to be fun.
Again, in part 2, the roles were reversed. Hideko was a cold mastermind, and she'd specifically requested a naive maid, but she hadn't expected Sook-hee's naivete to be so charming. Sook-hee was surprised that Hideko was so good at sex and her only thought was that Hideko must've been a natural.
Love
Both Sook-hee and Hideko were playing a role when they met each other, and yet they still fell in love. I think the way they fell in love was through the sincerity that slipped through the cracks. Well, I think it was mostly coming from Sook-hee as she was not so good at acting, and Hideko was charmed by Sook-hee's sincerity, whether she was placating her when she was upset, or just trying to cuddle her and comfort her in general. This was by Hideko's own doing, by the way. She portrayed herself as someone who was super helpless, and I guess she just didn't expect a maid to treat her so gently.
Over time, I think Hideko wanted to reveal her true self to Sook-hee, which was how Sook-hee started to see the true Hideko.
I think their love was intensified with Fujiwara in the mix. He was trying to look like he was wooing Hideko, which made Sook-hee jealous. She had to make the decision of whether she'd betray Hideko or Fujiwara and swung violently from one side to the other but ended up betraying Fujiwara for love.
Pretenses
Near the beginning of the movie, Hideko told Sook-hee that she could steal from her, but never to lie to her. I'd heard this quote before, and I'd assumed that it was something said further in their relationship, so I was surprised to know that this was one of the first things that Hideko said to Sook-hee.
In Fujiwara and Hideko's wedding oath, he promised not to lie or steal. At that time, we had not known that Hideko was going to double cross Sook-hee, so it appeared that Fujiwara was both lying to her (about him not being a Japanese Count) and stealing from her (marrying for money).
In addition, Count Fujiwara's sexual advances towards Hideko were so bad that it was a surprise that Hideko fell for them, but later that pretense turned out to be a great way of hiding the "second truth" which was that Fujiwara and Hideko were working together.
Of course, Fujiwara, Sook-hee, and Hideko were all lying to one another. They were both working with two parties, it was just a matter of which was the truest of them all.
Sexual abuse
Before Kouzuki left for his gold mine, he reminded Hideko always to remember the basement. I thought it was a way for him to remind her of her "roots," seeing as how a basement was the bottom foundation of a building. In a way, it sort of was. Kouzuki raised Hideko on abuse and fear. The basement housed all of his books, which was the only reason Hideko had a "job," but the further basement, the torture chamber, was a reminder to Hideko that Kouzuki would not have mercy on her if she stepped out of line.
In part 2, it was interesting to see how despite being seen as a sexual object, Hideko always kept her wits about. As she read, she remembered what she'd done with each of the men sitting in on the auction. I guess she kept these secrets in case she ever needed them.
Repetion
Throughout the movie, various people would use the same words and phrases to describe things. Both Sook-hee and Hideko described Hideko as having no one else in the world. Both Kouzuki and Fujiwara described Hideko as fully ripe.
I think there are a couple of possible interpretations. One, like Hideko and Sook-hee's situation described, would be that everyone's always eavesdropping on one another. Kind of a reminder that this was an espionage film, and that your secrets were never truly secrets.
The other possible interpretation would be that the characters in the film were following a "script of life." Obviously as part of cons, Fujiwara, Sook-hee, and Hideko tended to use act and speak a certain way to elicit a certain reaction, or as a code word to one another.
Politics
Even today, there is an anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea due to their war crimes, and this film firmly pictured the Japanese as abusive and vile. Kouzuki, the Korean man who ditched his roots to become as Japanese as possible, was depicted as fully evil. He ditched his wife to marry a Japanese woman. He even told Fujiwara that he found Korea ugly and Japan beautiful.
Mirrors and windows
Park Chan-wook directed Stoker, one of my favourite movies that had beautiful cinematography. In particular, there was a frame involving a mirror that had a very big impact on me, so it piqued my interest when I saw his use of mirrors, screens, and windows in this movie.
I think like in Stoker, mirrors were a way to show that people were not what they seemed. Sometimes when Hideko, Sook-hee, and Fujiwara were in the same room, Fujiwara would look at Sook-hee in a mirror to send a secret message because he wasn't supposed to know her.
Sook-hee would spy on Hideko and Fujiwara in their private trysts. She was allowed to look at Fujiwara because to her, he was "in on it" with her, but she wasn't allowed to let herself be seen by Hideko, who actually knew that she was there but had to act like she was amorous with Fujiwara.
When Sook-hee and Fujiwara had their private meetings, they'd watch the screen for any spies. In addition, on Fujiwara and Hideko's "wedding night," they'd acted like they had sex through a screen, again for Sook-hee's benefit (though technically it was for Fujiwara's benefit as Hideko and Sook-hee were already reconciled by then).
Overall
This was a terrific movie. I thought my favourite part would've been the cinematography but I think now I know that I can also trust Park Chan-wook's works to have great scripts too. As I mentioned, the way the movie was written was great and kept me engaged 100% of the time, which I admit is a bit hard sometimes because I get easily distracted. But I literally never multi-tasked while watching this movie, perhaps because I knew the story was something special. Highly recommend this movie!