A rare psychodrama with a plot that keeps us thinking and guessing: The Handmaiden

Park Chan-Wook's 2016 Korean film, The Handmaiden, centers on a country estate in which the manor is built half in traditional Japanese style and the other half an English manor house with Victorian era furnishings and decor, and this bifurcated architecture is a metaphor for the theme of this film: a young Korean woman arrives at the house where she is to serve as the handmaiden for the young woman who will inherit the vast wealth of the estate, and we think we're embarked on one of the many servant-governess stories so common in English literature (and film) - Jane Eyre, Turn of the Screw, Rebecca, et al. - but then the movie takes a dramatic shift and we're in a completely different film, in which the characters are underworld figures plotting and scheming, with and against one another, in various interlocked and conflicted attempts to steal the (ill-gotten) fortune of this household. I won't give any plot elements away except to say that there are several complete turnarounds in the plot, various surprises, and a lot of complex scheming that at times is hard to follow, though you don't necessarily need to track every nuance. There are some intense scenes of torture and abuse (not watchable) and some intense sex scenes (watchable), and even some moments of dark humor. It's a long film, but engaging throughout - like a long and complex novel, with strong lead characters who go after one another with murderous intensity. Chan-Wook, part of a great new wave of Korean directors, also directed that dark drama Oldboy. Like that one, this film is not for everyone nor for every mood; it's unsettling, demands a lot of attention, a rare psychodrama that keeps us guessing and thinking from start to end.