It’s not for nothing that one of its heroines, Sookee (Kim Tae-ri), is a pickpocket, though that’s getting ahead of her story. This is a movie that tries to ravish your senses so thoroughly you may not notice its sleights of hand. The same could be said of the director Park Chan-wook, whose attention to voluptuous detail - to opulent brocades and silky robes, luscious peaches and creamy shoulders - turns each scene into an invitation to ooh, aah and mmm.
The art of the tease is rarely as refined as in “The Handmaiden.” Set in Korea in the 1930s, this amusingly slippery entertainment is an erotic fantasy about an heiress, her sadistic uncle, her devoted maid and the rake who’s trying to pull off a devilishly elaborate con.
