Sometimes I'm amazed that The Handmaiden has such international appeal because I look at all these moments that would fly over non-Korean audiences' heads and I'm all, wait you don't want to explain that? But but that's a brilliant reference to Korean culture, don't you want to show that off to your audience??
Obviously Park did the right thing in not self-consciously explaining everything to foreign audiences, which would have been condescending and tedious. I mean imagine if Hideko flashed the knife and Fujiwara said "Oho, are you some faithful highborn wife now, ready to kill yourself for your honor?" That would have been a total record scratch moment because, for one thing, Fujiwara in his straight macho obliviousness had zero reason to suspect Hideko was keeping herself "pure" for anyone else. For another, Hideko didn't mean to kill herself in the event of attempted rape--she's not even Korean, she meant to kill Fujiwara. The knife was an "oohhhh" moment for domentic audiences, and it didn't hurt anything for international audiences who wouldn't get it. Park is a master in both using these references and in not feeling the need to explain his own cleverness.
I think I got way too many feels about Fujiwara in the way women can give too much energy and benefits of the doubt to men in their in-group. You're absolutely right that he's repulsive and awful, yet he still had my sympathy due to the fact that I know about the nature of his oppression, and because he did have sympathetic moments in the movie (for those of us, mainly Koreans, who recognize the references to his background). It's not even truly sympathetic, though. It's just a con man making excuses for himself with a sob story, because obviously the vast majority of impoverished men from Jeju Island were NOT con men, murderers, and rapists. Fujiwara chose to be those things in response to his circumstances. But of course, the circumstances of his life were pretty objectively terrible. It's an interesting line between circumstance and choice--as James Baldwin pointed out, oppression doesn't make people kind or generous. Instead it gives them a constant, blinding rage.
That makes sense about the scissoring scene! I don't think Hideko had any illusions about Fujiwara in the first place, but she probably put this down to her trauma rather than her being gay, which would have been a foreign concept anyway. (Though, if you don't feel a twinge for freaking Ha Jeong-woo that's a huge sign that you might not be attracted to any guy.) That's a place where being abused can make an already painful and confusing situation even worse for queer people, I think, because the victim might not know where the abuse ends and they start. When Hideko realized that she could enjoy sex, just with Sook-Hee and not Fujiwara or any of the guys who perved on her, that would have been a huge moment of realization.
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Obviously Park did the right thing in not self-consciously explaining everything to foreign audiences, which would have been condescending and tedious. I mean imagine if Hideko flashed the knife and Fujiwara said "Oho, are you some faithful highborn wife now, ready to kill yourself for your honor?" That would have been a total record scratch moment because, for one thing, Fujiwara in his straight macho obliviousness had zero reason to suspect Hideko was keeping herself "pure" for anyone else. For another, Hideko didn't mean to kill herself in the event of attempted rape--she's not even Korean, she meant to kill Fujiwara. The knife was an "oohhhh" moment for domentic audiences, and it didn't hurt anything for international audiences who wouldn't get it. Park is a master in both using these references and in not feeling the need to explain his own cleverness.
I think I got way too many feels about Fujiwara in the way women can give too much energy and benefits of the doubt to men in their in-group. You're absolutely right that he's repulsive and awful, yet he still had my sympathy due to the fact that I know about the nature of his oppression, and because he did have sympathetic moments in the movie (for those of us, mainly Koreans, who recognize the references to his background). It's not even truly sympathetic, though. It's just a con man making excuses for himself with a sob story, because obviously the vast majority of impoverished men from Jeju Island were NOT con men, murderers, and rapists. Fujiwara chose to be those things in response to his circumstances. But of course, the circumstances of his life were pretty objectively terrible. It's an interesting line between circumstance and choice--as James Baldwin pointed out, oppression doesn't make people kind or generous. Instead it gives them a constant, blinding rage.
That makes sense about the scissoring scene! I don't think Hideko had any illusions about Fujiwara in the first place, but she probably put this down to her trauma rather than her being gay, which would have been a foreign concept anyway. (Though, if you don't feel a twinge for freaking Ha Jeong-woo that's a huge sign that you might not be attracted to any guy.) That's a place where being abused can make an already painful and confusing situation even worse for queer people, I think, because the victim might not know where the abuse ends and they start. When Hideko realized that she could enjoy sex, just with Sook-Hee and not Fujiwara or any of the guys who perved on her, that would have been a huge moment of realization.