Clip It: Each day, Jon Davis looks at the world of trailers, featurettes and clips and puts it all in perspective.
The Handmaiden looks cool. The motif of the handmaiden (I presume) looking through the peephole is well done. As for the rest of it, it teases the look and the tone of the film, and it totally works. Chan-wook Park's Oldboy (not the 2013 American remake, obviously) is one of the best thriller movies ever, with one of the top ten best action sequences of all time, so he's got tons of capital with me. That said, I haven't seen any of his other movies. I haven't seen Lady Sympathy or Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. I've never seen Gone with the Wind, either. I have gaps.
My only hesitation is what appears to be a fair amount of masochism. The creepy image of the wooden puppet and the string and… I have no idea what's going on, but it can't be good. You don't want to see that in your living room anytime soon. If there's too much torture going on, my tender heart may not be able to handle it. Also, it occurs to me that nobody hires a handmaiden anymore. Maybe this movie is one of those fables as to why that practice stopped. These days, we might have a house cleaner or a nanny but you never see bulletin board notices for handmaidens. You'll see guitar lessons from Steve but handmaidens are out. After watching The Handmaiden trailer, that's probably a good thing.