London Film Festival Day 3: La La Land, The Handmaiden & American Honey

Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Stoker) returns with another demented picture sure to please his legion of fans, a beautifully filmed, surprisingly hilarious erotic thriller with three terrific central performances.

It's tough to say too much about the movie without giving something crucial away, but it revolves around a con-man (Ha Jung-woo) hiring a pickpocket (Kim Tae-ri) to become the maid of a mentally unstable heiress (Kim Min-hee) and help him steal away her fortune. Things naturally don't quite go according to plan.

This is a sumptuous film in every way, from the art direction through to gorgeous lensing by Park's regular cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon, but it's also superbly scripted, with deep characterisation and an incredibly gripping, if occasionally confusing, plot.

There are a ton of devilish plot twists that re-arrange the context of prior scenes in fascinating ways, and just when you think you have it all pegged, Park fields out yet another off-the-wall revelation. Despite its potential to be unsavorily melodramatic, the film actually remains exceedingly robust, even classy throughout, with Park's usual deference for shocking moments continuing in jaw-dropping fashion.

Rating: Arguably one of the year's best films so far, The Handmaiden is another winner from one of South Korea's finest exports. There's simply nothing else like it out there. 8/10