There’s something fishy about The Handmaiden and it’s not just the octopus in the basement. Chan-wook Park, the South Korean director of such darkly realized stunners as Oldboy and Lady Vengeance, is a noted storyboard guru. Each frame a picture, the film-critic-turned-filmmaker has a stunning eye for specificity that is reflected in the urgent nuances of every camera movement, every prop, every look, every framing choice. So when his latest picture reaches the conclusion of its first act and turns time back to the beginning, we become fiercely cognizant of the various misdirection at play. After all, the devil is in the detail. And you know that with Park’s distinctively dark auteur style, there are an abundance of both devils and details. Read More