victoria from 5 to 7 | fashion, film, lit, more

Now released in the UK after its release in South Korea back in June 2016, Park Chan-Wook's latest offering, The Handmaiden , is a period drama that is far more dynamic, fun and ferocious than it initially appears. Simultaneously mimicking the structures of an Austen-style Victorian drama and a luxurious, erotic thriller at the same time, the film also deconstructs the differences between masculine desire and feminine sexual fulfilment. The Handmaiden is a film you need to see - in your local arthouse cinema - to continue to support genuinely good, non-Western cinema.  Kim Tae-ri (left) and Kim Min-hee (right) as handmaiden and lady, respectively, in The Handmaiden Adapted from 'Fingersmith', a novel by Sarah Waters and set in Victorian England, The Handmaiden  lifts the plot and overall structure of the text and re-situates it in 1930s Japanese-occupied Korea. Such a shift is fitting between the two periods - both characterised by distinctions of class, gender an...