Directed by Park Chan-wook
South Korea | Korean & Japanese w/ English subtitles | Fiction | 145 min | 2016
Film Source: Magnolia
Showtime: Friday, October 28 | 6:00 p.m. | FH
A Burlington Film Society screening presented by Main Street Landing & VTIFF
Hideko, a Japanese heiress who lives on a secluded estate with her imperious uncle, hires Sookee, a young Korean woman, to serve as her handmaiden. But Sookee, a pickpocket recruited by a swindler for a manipulative scheme, harbors secret designs to fleece Hideko of her fortune and imprison her in an asylum. These plans however are soon complicated by unexpected romantic and sexual entanglements. Ravishing cinematography and lushly detailed production design mark this adaptation of Sarah Waters’ 2002 novel Fingersmith by the director of Oldboy and Lady Vengeance. Transporting this tale of double-crosses and erotic roundelays from Victorian England to 1930s Korea, Park Chan-wook creates a gripping crime drama that is both a sensual thriller and an emotional exploration of the story of two women — one with a dark past and the other trapped in a desperate present. ~SJ
