THE HANDMAIDEN (10th Anniversary)

1930s Korea, under Japanese colonial rule. A young pickpocket named Sook-hee is hired as a handmaiden to Lady Hideko, a wealthy Japanese heiress kept secluded on a sprawling estate by her sinister uncle. What Hideko doesn't know: Sook-hee is part of a con — planted by a swindler posing as a Japanese count who plans to seduce Hideko, marry her, and have her committed to an asylum so he can steal her fortune. But as Sook-hee gets closer to Hideko, an unexpected and consuming desire begins to unravel the plan from the inside.

From Park Chan-wook (the crazed, ingenious mind behind Oldboy and Stoker) comes a ravishing, twist-upon-twist erotic thriller that reinvents Sarah Waters' Fingersmith as a story of obsession, betrayal, and queer liberation set against Gothic mansion intrigue. Gorgeously shot, wickedly funny, and structured in three shifting perspectives that keep rewriting who's really in control, The Handmaiden has become a modern queer-cinema classic — a decade on, still as seductive and subversive as ever. Presented on the big screen for its 10th anniversary as part of O Cinema's Queer As Cult series.

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