The Handmaiden with Emily Yoshida

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Reading can be learned, and I don't care if you curse or steal.

[00:00:25] But don't ever podcast me, understood? What's your favorite line, Emily?

[00:00:30] I literally just took the top quote on the page because I was searching through them and Emily, our guest, who I'm not introducing yet, said that she had multiple options and I want to just get one out of the way so I could hear her throw her options out.

[00:00:43] I just have one main one and then a second one that's sort of funny. Did the big podcast make her go mad? And also, pain is a podcast. That's good. Here's another one I considered. At least I'll die with my podcast intact. That's actually good. That's good, right?

[00:01:07] Because the word is cock. The word is cock. Cack. With my little joke of a podcast. Yeah, he doesn't even have a good dick, right? Yeah, that's the... It's one of actually the largest, strongest recurring themes in the movies that his dick sucks.

[00:01:22] Everyone's just negging this guy's dick. Which is really disappointing. I think he is one of the more handsome people that's ever been on screen in the last decade. So the idea that his dick sucks is very...

[00:01:35] Well, I think it's more like... He is very hot. We can talk about him. Ha Jung Woo. And I know he's a huge star in Korea. Yeah, he's like a TV. He's one of the biggest actors. He's on some Netflix series too, I think.

[00:01:51] So God bless him for just being like, yeah, you want me to play like creepy bad dick count guy? Like who sucks? I'll do it. Sounds good. Sounds like a good role. All these ladies get one over on me?

[00:02:04] This is the thing I appreciate about having done this mini series. Already being a big fan of Park Chan-wook's films and having seen the majority of them and love them a lot by and large.

[00:02:19] But not really having a tremendous amount of cultural context for them and considering them within that. And now like digging into all these movies and being like, oh, almost every time the leading man he's working with is like one of the biggest stars in South Korean cinema.

[00:02:34] Like heartthrob, legitimate, dramatic, heavyweight leading man. And he almost always cast them as like deranged cucks and villains and creeps. Like he just emasculates them so thoroughly and destroys them in a way that I just like...

[00:02:49] I always was watching them like, oh, he found a great character actor. And it's like, no, he keeps on making like Brad Pitt eat shit.

[00:02:58] I feel like there must be a waitlist, like a secret waitlist for Park movies where, you know, like the highest ranking actors at any given time. It's kind of like for a kidney, except it's like, I really want to get being a creep out of my system.

[00:03:12] And, you know, he's the number one practitioner of creeps. It feels like career S&M. Yeah, totally. Where they're like fucking ruin me, ruin me Park Chan-wook, destroy my image as a star. Right. It's a rite of passage. It's a badge of honor.

[00:03:32] Yeah, and it's just he never lets them be cool. Ironically, well, we can get to this, but he's not the one who has a ruined reputation after this film. But nothing to do with this film specifically. No, no, you're right. It is. It speaks about... Who is coolest?

[00:03:48] What? Who is the coolest male protagonist? All the boys in JSA, I suppose. Kind of cool. Yeah, I think that's the answer. I don't know. But they're all kind of cucks to their respective militaries. Yeah, they're cucks to their countries. Yeah, yeah. They all got cucked by patriotism.

[00:04:06] But nationalists. But they at least play guys who are playing at being leading men, if that makes sense. Sure, yeah. Semi-convincingly. They're all trying to do star performances. I mean, I think he is very cute. And I'm a podcast. I'm a cyborg.

[00:04:22] But he's wearing like a bunny hat and shit. That's his sweetest male lead. But he's also deranged. Song Kang-ho, I think, is very cool in Thirst. I think he's cool, but he's not like... He's a broken man. Yeah, yeah.

[00:04:37] It's like that movie is almost like can you just will him to be sexy by having the movie just being so insane? Right. I love that movie. Old boy, Mr. Vengeance, Decision to Leave, This are just like broken men. Yes. Where he's working with all like huge stars.

[00:04:58] Yeah. You know, I think it's great. Who's like that here? No, who like goes out of their way to break men on screen? Like you look like shit. Yeah, fuck you. I don't know. Last time somebody really, really hot looked terrible in an American movie like a man.

[00:05:15] But like in a way that wasn't performative or stupid, you know, like sometimes they'll be like, oh, look at me. But he just like looked shitty but was like... Brendan Fraser. I thought he was pretty good in The Will.

[00:05:27] This like thoroughly emasculated by the text of the film. That's the thing. It's not just the way he makes them look. Yeah. I still think, I still think, oh God, I keep forgetting the name of the hot actor. Ha Jung-woo.

[00:05:43] But he, yeah, he still kind of gets out being cool. I think like if it ended in the scene before his last scene, then he would look kind of dumb. But he really has like a cool, like he has a cool ending.

[00:05:58] I think he gets away looking pretty cool. He does, but he also like he's able to die on his own terms looking kind of cool, admitting that he's a piece of shit. Yeah. Like part of the ending. Which is every man's dream. Right.

[00:06:11] He just accepts that he's a piece of shit and at least he still got his cock in his hand. And he didn't like no one put him in an octopus tank or anything.

[00:06:16] Like when the octopus shows up, you're like, oh God, is there going to be a whole octopus thing? You know that octopus is going to go straight for the cock too. That's the other problem. Not to look. He's the one. It's his final words. Cock to cock.

[00:06:28] Introduce the podcast. Cock-to-puss. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. Cock-to-pussy. Cock-to-pussy. A hundred comedy points.

[00:06:38] It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Emasculating South Korea's biggest leading men. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce.

[00:06:51] Baby, this is a mini series on the films of Park Chan-wook. It's called I'm a Podcast, But That's Okay. Today we are talking what, David, I think you and I, no spoilers agree is his masterpiece. I think so. For me it's my undeniable number one.

[00:07:08] And beyond that one of my favorite films the last ten years. It's called The Handmaiden. And returning to the show. Retweening. Retweening to the show for what is the 12th? Who can keep count? 13th? Let me fire up blank check wiki. I have bookmarked on my Chrome.

[00:07:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is this a Yoshida's dozen? The mother blankies herself. Emily Yoshida. This is 13th. This is a Yoshida's dozen. Great. Well, hello, my children. Hi. Great to be back. Yeah. Twice in the same year.

[00:07:54] I think I went an entire year though not being on the pod. You did. I really did a little like mercy. Like I kind of just broke down into like a little jog. Let some other people like think they could catch up. No one's catching up.

[00:08:08] No, no, no. Emily St. James is on our Stoker episode and she pointed out that there was no Emily period on the podcast in 2022 which was an oversight. Oh, I'm so excited to hear Emily on Stoker. This is being recorded in the past. Even like Stefanski.

[00:08:25] There was no Emma even I want to say. No, Emma was because Emma did James and the Giant Peach. Wasn't that top of 23? Well, no. Or was that last of 22? Now I got to look at that. My memory is that was first ep up. Might be.

[00:08:39] But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that was tail end. It was core line. That was the first of the year. Okay, so an Emma snuck in but no Emilys. Yeah, yeah. Emma's not an Emily. She's an Emma. I know.

[00:08:50] I know that I was just I was asking an adjacent question. The point is, yes, you'd let everyone catch up a little bit just to reassert your dominance. Yeah, yeah. It's cruel but necessary. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. You wanted to discuss Park Chenwick's film The Handmaid.

[00:09:10] Coolest shit ever made. You asked us if you could. I did. We said yes. Which was very kind of you. I didn't necessarily think I would get it because I figured everybody would want this movie. And I assume they all did because it's basically a perfect movie. Yep.

[00:09:26] I feel like a lot of people did ask. I don't know. They would just put it on the list, right? Or just be like, well, I like Handmaiden. A lot of moving puzzle pieces in scheduling this one for a number of reasons. This whole miniseries.

[00:09:38] And there was like a thought of someone who maybe wanted to do it where we held it off and didn't. Oh, that's right. We weren't offering it. We weren't offering it for a while. We kind of took it off the board for a while.

[00:09:48] I wanted to give it to someone fancy. Yes. And who's fancier than Emily Yoshida? Someone somewhere asked me to describe my personality with one word. I'm not kidding. I think it was probably on a dating app or something. Cool. And I did say fancy. Yeah.

[00:10:08] But I think I was drunk when I said that. Well, you are very fancy. You and I, I feel like both have an appreciation for fanciness. Yeah. We've got some tourist placements. Exactly. Don't get me started on astrology with David Sims. Oh boy.

[00:10:24] I love astrology as a means of talking about myself. I don't really love it as a means of understanding the celestial universe or whatever. If that makes sense. Interesting. Just an organizational tool.

[00:10:37] I am looking at my blank check history just so I can remember the last time I was able to truly gush over a movie. I have zero negative things to say about this movie. Spoiler alert. I guess I really like Dark Star, obviously.

[00:10:57] It's not a perfect movie, but I really like it and I wanted to make an argument for it. And then, I mean, even, and I know everybody hated this, but I really like Mad Max Fury Road.

[00:11:10] But it's not, I don't think I feel ecstatic about that movie the way I feel ecstatic about this movie. That episode also, I can't think about that episode because like an hour of it was lost. Right. We've revealed that before, right? Yes. An hour of it was lost.

[00:11:26] And it was like. That was in the dark, audio boom studio times. Right. And it was also one of the last in-person pre-bangs. Yes. Yeah. Yes, because we were already having to start to do zooms for earlier episodes. That's right. No, that's a tough one to revisit.

[00:11:45] The episode turned out well. Ben did a good salvage job. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Castle in the Sky? Surely you have no beef with Castle in the Sky. Oh, no.

[00:11:53] Castle in the Sky I think was the last time I did a full on like just this is my shit. Babe. I will just, I know every detail of it. Like I can, I can just, you know, wax poetic on it.

[00:12:05] Babe was not main feed, but I do feel like that episode was all three of us being like. Yes, yes, that was another one. Yeah, yeah. Perfect, perfect masterpiece. I will go hard for Babe. Yeah, that's a perfect movie also. Babe and the Hens.

[00:12:15] Like what are you going to do, criticize Babe? You can't. He's some good pig. He's a very good pig. That's fucking Charlotte's way, but I think it still applies to Babe. Wilbur. Wilbur is some pig. He's also a good pig. There can be two good pigs.

[00:12:27] Yeah, I mean that'll do honestly to both pigs. That'll do. Yes. But The Handmaiden is really exciting. I'm and I also, sorry, I don't want to get too meta on my own blank check career, but

[00:12:42] I was thinking about it and I believe I saw this movie for the first time the same day I saw Elle for the first time. So at TIFF, I saw, I did not go to Cannes that year, but I did catch up with the cast

[00:12:56] at TIFF and was Elle at Cannes as well? I'm almost certain that it was. Yeah, so I was doing my catch up there. That was a good Cannes year and I was really bummed to have missed it.

[00:13:10] That was like the one little gap in my brief career of going to Cannes that I was not there for that one. But yeah, I think I saw these films back to back and like what an incredible day.

[00:13:22] And then maybe I saw Arrival either the day before or the next day, which is like one of my favorite movies. Yeah. Yeah. What a fun time at the festival. Well, when you get to TIFF on Thursday, Emily, we both know they show on Thursday morning

[00:13:37] all the Cannes movies. They do the catch up day. So sometimes, yeah, you get just an injection of masterpiece. Yeah. You'll watch like Parasite or Call Me By Your Name, whatever, you know, whatever the hot, you know, Cannes and Sundance movies were.

[00:13:52] Is this your favorite Park film as well, Emily? I was thinking about it. I really like Thirst a lot and I wanted to watch it. I, yeah, I did a big Park watch. I used to do this a lot.

[00:14:10] Like back in the Netflix disc days, I would just queue them all up, queue up an entire filmography. And I remember doing that for him at around it was, I think, because Thirst was his last film. And I remember just being blown away by it.

[00:14:29] And I think I've seen it once since then. But this one just being fresh in my mind and kind of remembering how excited I was to see it the first time. And there are certain moments in it where I remember being in the theater and be like,

[00:14:42] I'm, I'm watching what will become one of my favorite movies. And it's so exciting to have that feeling. So, yeah, I think, I think, I think it's like, yeah, jury's out on Thirst. Thirst is very, very good. It's up there. I love Thirst.

[00:14:56] But this is kind of like opus territory. I'll say this too. There in the UK, they released an extended cut of this. This film had different distributors in different territories. It was Amazon in the US and the UK. It was a, what are they called? Khorzon artificial eye?

[00:15:13] Khorzon? Yeah. And I think they both re-released it in theaters and then put it out on Blu-ray and maybe also streaming for a period of time in extended cut that's 25 minutes longer. And the American Blu-ray is out of print.

[00:15:26] So I imported the British one, which has the extended cut. And I watched both in the last 48 hours. All right. And I was like, is this going to be a radical transformation, like plus up of the movie I already think is a perfect masterpiece?

[00:15:41] Or is it going to feel like it's padded out now and this is just kind of like a for nerds, like bonus stuff version. And instead, it's one of those things where it's like, oh, I think I would just like truly any version of this movie.

[00:15:55] Like the way I feel about like the multiple cuts of Margaret, where I'm just like, this movie is so in the pocket for me, has like such clarity about what it's saying that even if you start rearranging the footage and shortening things and lengthening different things,

[00:16:11] I'm just like, I'm just all in on this. That is surprising to me, though. Not I mean, I haven't seen the extended, but yeah, I think part of what makes this movie just perfect is the edit.

[00:16:22] And it feels like every single proportion of every section, every shot is just like exactly where it needs to be. So I am not that I doubt that it's also good, but that's I mean, that's amazing. If it, if it, you know, if it stands.

[00:16:36] It sort of just works as an entirely valid different version of it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Reddit mostly says extended cut is worse. And Reddit's always right. I would default to watching theatrical. Yeah. But I would not say the extended is worse.

[00:16:52] Not like markedly worse, but sort of like, you know, whatever. They don't seem enthusiastic about it. They're like, eh, interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. I mean, there are a couple little structural changes and a lot of it is there's some alternate take stuff.

[00:17:07] It's more just interesting of like when a movie is this much of a Stone Cold masterpiece, it's interesting to watch like slightly different alternate universe versions of it that make you consider how they got to the choices they did in the first place.

[00:17:18] I get very scared with that. I don't like it sometimes. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I love my movie. Sure. I don't want the different one. I think it was also not like, oh, this was his earlier cut that then they know he was

[00:17:30] asked to make after the fact. They were like, do you want to stretch it out? Yes, we can. I think it's probably the best we can mention it. But yeah, no, I think he right. The film was so popular. They were like, do you have more?

[00:17:43] Could you do an extended? Yeah. And he was like, OK. Yeah, right. Yeah. It's still good, but it's not like a transformative thing. But yeah, I'm just like, I just think this thing is so locked in.

[00:17:56] I was going to say, I don't even know where to begin with. I mean, like it. I feel like the stuff that I'm really interested in about it, like I've actually had a really

[00:18:06] hard time finding a lot of comprehensive writing in English about kind of the whole setting and the significance of setting this book called Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. Sarah Waters. Sarah Waters. Sarah Waters runs the.

[00:18:27] Like, you know, the significance of putting it there and and, you know, what that does to the plot without ever being like it's never really didactic about it, but it's just like, what if we stuck this story in this different water? No pun intended. And let it cook.

[00:18:43] And yeah. And I that's the majority of what I've been doing to prep for this podcast is just trying to like have more than my like gist of what's going on really explored.

[00:18:58] But I mean, I just think well, the one thing I was going to ask you guys was. Do you have any other can you think of any other films that or I guess any kind of story that does that does this? That's an adaptation that resets it.

[00:19:18] And the one I could think of was Burning like that. But that is another story. Right. But Thirst also does this as a less direct translation. But when we were doing that episode, we. Right.

[00:19:33] It's a closer, more direct adaptation, not just a loosely inspired by but totally transposed onto something else. I was thinking about this on the way in. But this is the kind of thing that more often happens with like Shakespeare plays. Right.

[00:19:48] Where people are like, I'm going to put this in a different era and a different culture and whatever. And it doesn't often happen with more modern adaptations. Right. And because like Oldboy is a pretty radical adaptation, although it's not changed as much

[00:20:04] culturally than Thirst is like a very radical adaptation. I assume this was just how he likes to work. And then what JJ pulled up in his research was that like he was entirely preparing to do a more faithful adaptation of Fingersmith. Right.

[00:20:20] And then he found out the TV version existed. Oh, interesting. There's also there's already a TV version. There's a Sally Hawkins BBC miniseries. Sure. Sounds pretty good. Yes. I want to watch that. It sounds fucking good. The book is different, though, I will say as well.

[00:20:35] He did change the back half of the book quite a lot. Yeah, but I think he was going to do a like a British period corset piece kind of thing. Sure. And then I think once he found out that existed, there had already been a literal adaptation.

[00:20:50] Then he sort of did the creative. I mean, we'll dig into it more, but the creative exercise of how can I transpose this into a different place in time that adds some new layer to it?

[00:20:58] And then once he did that, he started making more changes to the story. And he and Sarah Waters eventually landed on a inspired by credit rather than adapted from, even though it is very much from the book. Yeah.

[00:21:11] The first half particularly is very, I think, very close to it. I haven't read the book. I've wanted to. The first half is the same and the second half is quite different.

[00:21:21] Basically, the big difference is they are not in on it when she gets put in the asylum. Like that's the he adds that later. Interesting. OK, like that happens in the book that happens. She doesn't realize she's going to get put in the asylum and she does it.

[00:21:37] The switcheroo is happening. Right. And just the book just end with her in the asylum? No, no, no. Then they do it. The turn happens later. But she gets out by herself. Gotcha. Finds her and then a lot of stuff happens. And it's just different.

[00:21:51] But it does sound cool. I mean, Sarah Waters also wrote a book called Tipping the Velvet. OK. Which means doing something a bit naughty. I was going to say, that's the most euphemistic sounding thing I've ever heard. You mean something a fingersmith might get up to.

[00:22:09] And it was turned into a mini series for the BBC in 2002 written by Andrew Davies who wrote the, you know, Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice and many other like Tony adaptations. And it was so controversial because it had boobs. Fuck.

[00:22:25] And it was like our government's paid for this? Lesbians? Also the amount of velvet they tipped in this fucking thing. Very expensive. The velvet budget. And so I'm sure it was a gigantic hit for the BBC. Like despite all the controversy.

[00:22:43] So I'm not surprised they also adapted it to Fingersmith. Let me give you some context. We're talking this stuff anyway. So yes, obviously the film that Park made before this is Stoker. Right. What do you think of Stoker, Emily? I like Stoker.

[00:22:58] I think it's flawed but a really interesting movie. I think it's unfortunately like horny in a way I can't even deal with. You're allowed. All green lights. What? Sorry? All green lights. It is definitely, you know, somewhat unfortunately horny. Fortunately horny. It is rare though.

[00:23:26] That would be a really good name for a podcast. If I do like start a sexy movie podcast I would call it unfortunately horny. I was going to say though, I feel like few movies tip that scale for you. Tip that velvet.

[00:23:39] Tip that velvet for you of like unfortunately too horny. So after he makes Stoker he does make a short film called Day Trip. Which I have not seen. I assume you guys probably haven't seen that either. Does bring him back to Korea.

[00:23:56] But I didn't realize how much post Stoker he was in the head space of. I will continue making English language films. He's planning to make The Brigands of Rattleborge, which we talked about I think. The famed S. Craig Zoller Western that has never been made.

[00:24:12] Do you hear that sound? What's that? It's a ponytail being pulled and slicked back. That's a horrible noise that you're making. Well that's what it sounds like every morning when S. Craig Zoller takes out the car wax. Pulls that ponytail back with all his might.

[00:24:26] I've never heard of this before. My God. It is like it was a number one blacklist script long ago. It was I guess how S. Craig Zoller emerged onto the scene. All right stop doing that. It's a foul play. I just. Stop saying his name.

[00:24:41] Well it must be amazing there's never been a bad script that's come from the blacklist. Exactly. It is. Straight bangers. It may surprise you to hear filled with extreme violence. What? Which Park found intriguing. But also I'm sure the characters exist within clear moral lines.

[00:24:59] Well apparently it's about a sheriff and a doctor who seek revenge against a group of bandits who use the cover of a torrential thunderstorm to rob and terrorize the occupants of a small town. I mean it sounds pretty fucking good honestly.

[00:25:10] And also if Park Chan were going to make an S. Craig Zoller scripted Western I probably would be interested. Yeah absolutely. I'd probably want to see that but.

[00:25:17] And that's what he said by the way was like him making an English language film in the first place with Stoker was almost means to an end for him of I want to make an American Western. That is what interests me.

[00:25:30] You want to make like a Robert Aldrich. My number one reason I'd want to even set a foot into the American film industry is to be able to make a Western.

[00:25:37] So he was thinking I will use Stoker to finally realize that dream but this film never gets made. So we have also a crime film called Corsica 72 written by Neil Purvis and Robert Wade the Bond guys

[00:25:57] which was I don't know some other script he got linked to about best friends living on Corsica. One becomes an honest working man one becomes a gangster and they feud over a woman. It sounds good. Sounds pretty good.

[00:26:10] I just want to shout out credit to JJ a researcher. He used the term of found the director getting a serious case of the quote attaches for the first time in his career. Attached to things.

[00:26:22] I think this is a good blank check term for when directors the post Pan's Labyrinth Gimlet Toro period of just like I'm going to attach myself to 80,000 things. Yeah. You're hot stuff. Yeah. Yes.

[00:26:36] He was also attached to a film called Second Born written by someone called David Yager now and it's a sci-fi action film sort of Philip K Dick ask. He said we don't know much else about it. I don't know never happened.

[00:26:50] He was also attached to or maybe he was not. He said that this is not true that he was rumored to be making the Revenant with Samuel L Jackson.

[00:27:00] Jackson was trying to make a very different version of the Revenant story and he was sent because he was not correct. Although do you know. Sure. I think it was maybe more of a handmaiden style adaptation of the idea of someone surviving this kind of thing. Yeah.

[00:27:14] He was sent the book. He doesn't remember whether or not he read it but the fact that the material had been sent to him for interest somehow got circulated by the press as him being attached. Well that's what I was going to say about the attaches.

[00:27:27] I think more often than not it has nothing to do with the actual director. It's more like they're hot right now and anybody would like to be even rumored to be working with them to be on.

[00:27:37] I think they do often do that thing where like they send a script to the hottest director in town and then reps will leak to the press. They're reading. Blank is is eyeing. Yeah. And it's like it's a script on their desk.

[00:27:50] It's a thing in their fucking inbox. Yeah. I'm eyeing my electric bill for this month. Sounds like you got a case of the attaches Emily. Yeah. I just think it'd be really interesting to recontextualize it in another setting. Eyeing? Sorry. Stupid. Emily Inkle's electric bill refuses to pay.

[00:28:15] All right. Fingersmith. Baffo Electric's bill. Yeah. Go on. So, 2002. Booker Prize short list. Sure. Acclaimed Sally Hawkins BBC One mini series. Yes. And then years later Sid Lim who produced several Park films chucks it to him and says what do you think?

[00:28:38] He reads it and a part one with the first of many twists. He's like whoa crazy. We've talked about Park loves a good twist middle. Yeah. And how he likes to structure his stories. Yeah.

[00:28:52] So he gets to that point and a part one he must have just been like fucking hooting and hollering. Yeah. It's very I mean it kind of reminds me of Mr. Vengeance a little bit like you know just

[00:29:02] that kind of switcheroo like kind of handshake in the middle which is always very fun. I was so glad I wasn't familiar with Fingersmith before because I remember that pop that twist hitting like insane. I remember people gasping in the theater. Like it's so fun.

[00:29:18] No I went into this I remember just being dead cold knowing nothing outside of it played really well at festivals and I like Parks movies. I knew it was based on this book but I had not read Fingersmith. Yeah I have still not read it. I confess. Hey.

[00:29:32] But so I did not know. Yeah. I just knew there I knew there might be twists. It's sort of his thing again. Yeah. I dare say this movie doesn't just have twists. This movie is a goddamn bag of pretzels. This movie is a pot of spaghetti. Spaghetti.

[00:29:47] Routiney more like. Tangled up. Well that's fair. I keep my spaghetti straight and separated. Right you don't cook it. I don't cook it and I lay all the pieces out laterally in front of me on a table and I

[00:29:59] just bite into them one at a time crunch crunch crunch. He also wanted he was drawn to the idea of making a film where the protagonists are two women. Yes. So you know whatever woke mind virus got him I guess.

[00:30:13] Well I think we've talked about but like joking when I say that I realize I should just like do clarification. And also you're allowed to say that because you happen to fighting a severe case of the woke man virus. This isn't you mocking it. It's terminal. Right.

[00:30:27] You're a survivor. You live with it every day. It is it is terminal and inoperable. No. The book my virus did get to him. But you know we've talked about a lot of his career was him from old boy on trying to give

[00:30:41] his female characters more agency center the more in the story after feeling like he used them as sort of plot devices or story functions in his first couple of films.

[00:30:49] On top of that he also said like he had wanted to make a queer film for a long time and the thing he was looking for was a queer story that is not about prejudice which is a thing

[00:31:01] that is really interesting about this movie that it's like this is a movie with a tremendous amount of tension and dramatic stakes but none of those stakes come from the fact that they are queer. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's never really commented on.

[00:31:15] You don't really get a sense of like from from Suki like if she's knows she's even a lesbian like before meeting before meeting Lady Hideko it's like it but it just kind

[00:31:27] of feels like well I'm super duper horny for this person so I'm just going to roll with it because I can't help it and that's yeah it feels very liberated in that way. And even when our like our villain our cuck villain. The Count. The Count.

[00:31:44] Because the uncle is even bigger villain in a way. They're both villains. Right. They're like the entity in Gabriel. Modern parlance we all understand now. Even when he it clicks for him that she is gay it feels like he says it to her like I

[00:32:04] realized you're left handed. Yeah. Right. Like there's no judgment about it as much as he is clearly attracted to her it's just like I understand you I had misperceived you. His quote is I was wanting to make a film that deals with the subject of homosexuality

[00:32:19] and I didn't want to handle in the way that the protagonists are pained or troubled over their sexual identity and they're grappling with society's perspective on them. They're discriminated against that they have to fight for their sexual identity.

[00:32:29] I just want to tell a love story about the characters emotions and how natural and organic it is. And that's so much of what I find interesting about this movie is it's like their love

[00:32:39] is in conflict with everything else around them which doesn't have to do with their love in a certain way. Yeah. I think it would be a little hat on a hat to have that be an issue for them just because

[00:32:51] there's so much going on politically and culturally and stuff there that in a way yeah the queerness feels more like a like a mode of freedom outside of this incredibly restrictive sort of setting that they're both in.

[00:33:08] It's like this one organic thing that breaks through out of this whole structure. That's like not that deep also. No it's like pretty just like visceral. Yeah. So Sarah Waters catches wind the park wants to do the after book she sits down and watches

[00:33:25] Old Boy right says I loved it because it was so gloriously excessive melodrama isn't the word really it's more Greek myth which I think is an accurate read. I think so.

[00:33:38] I think I mean I think I think that's mostly what he traffics in is Greek myth and I think that this film does a good job of kind of maintaining that. And I guess it's because it's based on non Greek myth material it's not an original

[00:33:57] story but I think it still maintains that sort of heightened reality while having characters in it that still feel extremely real and not like they are creations for the purpose of a parable or something. I would agree with that.

[00:34:16] She said that basically her publisher her agent whoever said like hey there's like some interest in doing a South Korean adaptation of Fingersmith and she was like oh that's weird and interesting I assume nothing will come of it.

[00:34:29] And that it was only then maybe like a year in when someone relayed to her you know it's it's Park Chan-wook it's the old boy guy and she hadn't seen his movies but knew him by

[00:34:36] reputation was like oh I didn't realize it was like the guy wants to make this. Yeah. So you know Park loves the book the silver thumb thimble tooth grinding scene he says he just you know he wanted to see that outside of the confines of the type page.

[00:34:58] We all wanted to see that. Right. Forky was like what is she doing when that scene began. I think because she wasn't paying attention. So you know I mean there's so much we sort of like the way the movie plays with perception

[00:35:18] and seeing the same events multiple times and recontextualizing them. He's like that's an inherently so cinematic thing. You can do that on the page but you're never going to do it better than you can with editing. Yeah.

[00:35:31] To take an audience back to the same scene with new information is such a delight. Yeah. Especially in this film obviously. There's I guess there's always there's the fear that it will feel boring but this one never feels boring.

[00:35:43] Also I think that a cool thing in this one to go back and retread is it's not just for plot purposes although that's obviously you know the pockets thicker in the second section but there's also just like like appreciating the moments that you thought you understood

[00:36:00] before have a different emotional meaning to like you remember this one scene between the two characters but then yes it's different for purposes of plot but also you're like I thought that character is feeling this way here because she laughed or something.

[00:36:13] But it was like it was totally a different I read it wrong like you know just because of the perspective that you have the first time. It's really cool. It's a cool thing.

[00:36:23] And you can replay the same footage but just now the context of how you're viewing it is differently or you give us extra time at the beginning and end of what we previously saw that resets it or whatever like that. It's just so effective.

[00:36:34] I don't know he's so good at this sort of like I'm going to only let the audience know what I want them to know when I want them to know it. Right. Yeah.

[00:36:47] And I feel like a lot of his movies the first chunk of it you are kind of purposefully disoriented which is a thing that's still difficult to do well which is keep an audience

[00:36:57] invested in a story they know they don't quite understand yet to keep people hooked on rather than frustrated when information is being withheld from them and then you get to the point halfway through or whatever where he starts like unraveling the thing. Right.

[00:37:12] And this is a movie where you think actually for the first whatever oh this is more conventional and straightforward than most of his narratives are. The fact that you were going into this understanding basically from minute 10 on the

[00:37:24] handmaidens path into this world and what her objectives are in the count and everything to then have the thing where you think I I think I have the full deck of cards in my hand.

[00:37:34] I know exactly what I'm playing with and then end a part one he introduces a second deck is like such a masterful trick to make you feel cocky that you understand the movie better than you do. Yeah. And then just immediately introduce all these new wrinkles into it.

[00:37:50] The only thing that would give you any you know whiff of suspicion that something else is going on is if you look at your watch and you're like this movie is however to and we are sure we're moving quite right. Yeah.

[00:38:05] OK so Park finds out yes there's a BBC adaptation the producer Sid Lim comes up with the idea why don't we move the setting to 1930s Korea. Here's I'm going to give you a lot from Park here Emily that may help you know whatever with context.

[00:38:20] The you know the idea being it was also a period of transition the country was going through modernization. Here's Park. It was the time in history when modern cultures and modern civilization made their way into Korea.

[00:38:32] The idea of the mental hospital in the movie we say the mental hospitals located in Japan but the very notion of it was so unfamiliar to Korean society at the time everything that came from the West came via Japan during that time. Yeah.

[00:38:45] So he wants to you know the idea of like everything filtering in through Japan. So like there's modernity but it's also like coming in with this like cultural you know through this cultural prism that's not Korean.

[00:38:59] And there's sort of this like kind of almost like shark eating the shark eating the shark of this Western culture that sort of in a way not at all like I mean these are very

[00:39:10] different situations but it came to Japan very suddenly in a way that was not like hostile necessarily but felt would have felt insane when if if you were there during the Meiji restoration when Japan opened up and suddenly there were you know as lean Europeans coming

[00:39:28] into the country and being like ooh la la I love Japanese stuff. And then you know and then you see the development of you know like Western style architecture and stuff and like around that time and it must have felt crazy.

[00:39:40] And then you see kind of a similar thing literally with this house being this crazy like design hybrid of Japan and Western English style. Exactly. Like the house is designed exactly to reflect that there's a Western wing Japanese wing they've been mechanically put together. Yeah.

[00:40:00] It's this insane fusion of two styles. I honestly think the house looks rad and I would live there. That's incredible. I wouldn't live there because the vibes are bad. It's cursed? Some good shit happens. Some good shit.

[00:40:13] Where you're like oh this tree is so pretty and they're like yes a woman died there and it took her soul. And she dies beautifully. And I'm like a lot of trees and like so many that you never see the sun.

[00:40:20] And I'm like is everything just kind of odd? Seems good but is actually bad. A little bit. I love the idea of like a selling sunset type tour of this house. Like you know the owner has said they would let you keep the octopus for an extra 20k.

[00:40:35] What did the octopus do? Why was it there? Well. So right right right. The whole thing is ridiculous though. Like you know like the way that people work in the house take off their shoes when they're in the Japanese wing.

[00:40:52] Put them back on when they enter the Western wing. Like Park loves all of this. Like the library looks like a Japanese building when you put inside it's got Western bookcases. And then you go past that and there's Japanese tatami mats on the floor.

[00:41:04] You know like all this stuff. Like it's probably not registering for American audiences in the same way I guess. But like there is just something peculiar about the architecture. That probably even like a complete layperson can get. That it's this is not like what houses look like.

[00:41:22] And it's not an out of again it's not an out of realm of possibility idea. I mean you know the oldest neighborhoods in Tokyo have a lot of this sort of stuff that feels like you've got you know.

[00:41:33] Like I was saying like you have both this Western influence and then more traditional influence in it. Especially like a lot of fetishization of like French stuff and English stuff and stuff. But so that idea is not crazy.

[00:41:45] I think it's just but it is sort of I was thinking of like it is one of these sets especially that big hall with the tatami in the stage at the end. It's like it is one of these sets that's just like so made for this story.

[00:42:00] Like every element of it is so specific to the story. I was thinking of kind of like the apartment in Old Boy as well. Like which is less. The one that you've walked in? No no not the hotel.

[00:42:14] Well yeah I mean that's obviously a very specific plot necessary structure. But I guess like just the way that it felt so intentional the way it was constructed.

[00:42:23] Like kind of you know like knowing that in a very theater-y way knowing that a certain kind of set of events are going to unfold in this highly specific space. Yes. Yeah it's cool.

[00:42:37] I mean the mats that lift out and have the water underneath and like all of that is so interesting. I love it. Obviously this is also reflected in the brilliant choice and this is not in the novel at all of the subtitling being two languages with two colors.

[00:42:57] And the sort of nuances which especially on rewatch you pick up more and more of when a character might shift. The torture scene at the end is the one Park cites with the uncle speaks Korean for the first time in the film during the torture scene.

[00:43:13] Because obviously he mostly wants to come off as this Japanese you know man of taste. He has like aggressive self-hatred for the fact that he was not born Japanese. I think he's pretty chill. And I think he's figured it out.

[00:43:27] I think he's done a lot of work on himself. He's clearly normal. He knows himself. He's comfortable in his own skin. His tongue is definitely black for good reasons. Yeah. Waters you know they pitch all this to Waters and she's like sounds good bro.

[00:43:47] I think you get the novel. You're going to leave it you know the heart of it you know intact. So go for it. Park and his frequent co-screenwriter Chung Seo Kyung do it all without any further like intervention. They do come up with the inspired by thing.

[00:44:06] And that's when they change the title which is good because that was such a specific title. Yeah. It sounds like that would make any sense. The title of this. It does sound very British. Are you a fingersmith then?

[00:44:19] It would be cool if they did say like if they did have to say the word fingersmith in English but they had to do that accent for it. And it was like a third cover. It was in like English.

[00:44:30] She's like can you have one English because there's like one chimney sweep in the film for some reason. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This movie is pretty. It's fun. Yeah. It has funny stuff. There's a quote from him.

[00:44:55] It's in this chunk if I could find it in time but that his friend pointed out to him like you can never let a scene go on too long without throwing in some sort of comedic subversion.

[00:45:06] And he had never clocked it but he's like I think it makes me uncomfortable if something is too self serious for too long.

[00:45:13] And so the more melodramatic the events of his film becomes the more he feels the need to like acknowledge the absurdity of the situation or throw like surprising behaviors in on top of what's going on. You know. Yeah.

[00:45:29] I mean I definitely think that's true for his other films simply because there's so much brutality and just like truly dark bleak stuff in it that if you don't have an occasional reminder of a director's hand of a writer's hand in there being like it's all like it's invented this is like I did this for the movie like you know.

[00:45:50] Yes. You kind of need that release every now and then to be like it's a movie it's a movie it's a movie like all these children aren't actually dying. Right. I think David needs to be reminded of these episodes we've done. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:46:02] This one I was like there's definitely no child stuff in this one. A little smidge of it. Great to this kid. Forky ran out of the room literally ran out of the room when they do the flashback. Oh yeah. We can talk about it when we get there.

[00:46:17] I don't know if you guys saw it out there but like I we were texting about this day or about your you know your your your aversion to child death which is really weird. Like I think you should examine that. Yeah. But I but I.

[00:46:32] And you're like there's no childish handmaiden. Problem with it. I guess no problem is there but it is more alarming to me in this movie for very specific reasons but we'll get there. It's a very powerful movie in every way as well.

[00:46:45] It's just you know you're really in it. Apparently they consulted a queer friend of his co-screenwriter Seo Kyung who demanded they include the scissor sex. OK. Because I remember like when this movie came out some people being like did they have to scissor in the film?

[00:47:06] How much scissoring do people do? And I was like come on it's all part of the like opulence of this film. It's so wonderful. They only scissor though with the bells. I would say that and I feel like that might be a different sort of.

[00:47:18] No they scissor before the bells. That's true when they have the like the meme of the two hands. When they're going like you're natural. Their clasped hands. I feel like somebody should do the the clasped like bicep arm meme with that. Oh it's it's a right.

[00:47:33] Arnold Schwarzenegger Carl Weathers moment. Yes. I remember the thing about the Predator was they go in for the clasp hands and then they cut out and the two of them are scissoring. Yeah that would be amazing. It's like we're going to catch the Predator.

[00:47:47] This dossier is too long and I can tell because JJ's apologizing for that in the dossier. We'll get to as we get to it in the plot. Kim Tae Ri though we should shout out who plays Sookie. It's her first film.

[00:48:00] She was plucked you know from from thousands of auditions. Well 14 or 1470 so a thousand four hundred something.

[00:48:11] He has a great line I just think is good advice to anyone who listens to this podcast and makes movies or inspires aspires to do any sort of dramatic storytelling with actors. So I would like to say one thing about the casting process.

[00:48:24] If you find yourself in a situation where you're wondering if anyone from the shortlist is the right person for the role that probably means that none of them are right. And they just write.

[00:48:34] They auditioned over a thousand people and he just kept on being like a couple of them could maybe work. And then he like trusted himself like I'm not doing it until the person walks in who undeniably feels like they're the right personality match for this.

[00:48:46] And even though it was someone who was pretty green and untested he was just like she's got the right attitude. So she's never been in a movie before now Kim and he is red hot when he's casting her.

[00:49:00] And you know so that's the he's putting a total newbie up against a gigantic star. I feel like she's like the right dynamic. Perfect. I want as long as the newbie can hold her own which she like is so incredible in this.

[00:49:19] I remember reading that it was her first movie when when it came out and I was like you've got to be kidding me. She's just like so confident. She rules and I have not seen her in a movie since. She's big on TV too.

[00:49:33] She's in a she's in a show called Mr. Sunshine which is like a big Netflix. I'm aware of Mr. Sunshine. It's also set during the annexation. Yeah. Alice in Janney.

[00:49:45] No and also she was in that film Space Sweepers which was one of those Korean films that was like number one on Netflix for weeks. But I have not seen Space Sweepers. Interesting.

[00:49:56] I've been looking at a lot of filmographies both for this film and other ones that you guys have been covering and it is like just how heavy a presence Netflix has in Korean entertainment right now.

[00:50:09] It's like like everything like every show that I think most like I think most of them are Netflix productions. They're not purchases. So yeah it's.

[00:50:19] It feels like they very smartly saw that there was an opening in the market and an audience that was underserved and that this stuff had the ability to cross over and just started investing money early on the ground floor.

[00:50:35] I mean even this just being an Amazon co-production is really interesting because this is coming out of an era where Amazon is doing a lot of good in their film division.

[00:50:43] But a lot of it is taking 90s indie auteurs who can't get movies made anymore and giving them the money to make their thing that's been like lying on the shelf for a while.

[00:50:54] There are so many frustrating Amazon productions to me at this time because I refuse to have Prime. I will never pay for Prime if I watch something on Prime is because I stole somebody's password. Yeah I said it Bezos arrest me.

[00:51:09] A terrible company that's done many horrible things. But yeah this one is frustrating. I did watch this this time around on what's it called freebie. So there were ads but I'd seen it before so it was fun. But yeah that's annoying. This is Spirio is annoying.

[00:51:27] Peterloo is annoying to have it be. I want a Peterloo disc so bad. I don't know if that exists but I would love a Peterloo disc. I don't know that there is like Amazon's Annapurna era. Yeah it was. Yes it was them like you say.

[00:51:42] There's a blue there's a Blu-ray. It looks like a British Blu-ray. But still zones for Blu-ray. I know there are. Although increasingly more and more sometimes region for region free and the 4K discs are always region. You've got to get that region free player.

[00:51:59] That's what I got for that extended handmade points. I feel like this era when Amazon and Netflix come in.

[00:52:05] Netflix started doing a lot of like the great unmade projects were finally going to give people the money to make their fucking movies and almost all of them sucked when they came out. And the Amazon ones were mostly good. Yeah. Like the Mutes of the world versus mute.

[00:52:22] That was one of those things where it was like years of being like why won't anyone give Duncan Jones the money to make mute. And then Netflix gives him money. You're like oh because the script sucks. No one thought to tell him it was a but script. Right.

[00:52:35] And Amazon kind of did a run of really good auteur films before now they pivoted to doing whatever the fuck they're doing now. Well didn't didn't I read somewhere that Citadel cost something like what did it cost. It wasn't as much as it's a power but it was.

[00:52:48] It cost one squintillion dollars. The funny thing with Citadel was that they like made another version of it that they didn't air. They essentially made two full versions of Citadel. It's Amazon's idol shall we say. Yeah yeah it was. No Citadel cost like like four hundred million dollars.

[00:53:02] Yeah but it was good. It was so good. But this is the shit that just makes anybody who's ever tried to get anything made in this fucking industry want to rip their eyes out and quit and jump into the ocean.

[00:53:14] Look there's there's the phenomenon that a lot of these places when they're trying to get their foot in the door to be seen as legitimate the way they do that is presenting themselves as like great patrons of the art. We are not looking to make a profit.

[00:53:31] We are looking to enrich the culture and they hired Ted Hope who has like a great track record an indie film and sort of went like bring us the guys who are struggling to get their films made in the current system and we're going to give them the freedom and flexibility.

[00:53:44] And then once they had their foothold they were like great all we want to do now is Citadel. Everything should be Citadel. I mean because all of these are going to be loss leaders.

[00:53:53] Nobody's gonna make money off of these but it's truly it's just PR to go to Cannes and have a film by Lin Ramsey or whoever there.

[00:54:01] And then also you've like gotten that positive goodwill then you're able to competitively bid for fucking Dwayne Johnson's Santa Claus action movie which he wouldn't do unless. Do you know that Dwayne Johnson was a big Lin Ramsey head. You know he's seen more of a color like 80 times.

[00:54:15] You know who's in Citadel? Who? Stanley Tucci. It's got to touch at the tip. Oh wow. Well that must have been half the budget. Yeah. Here's something I want to float. I was having lunch with Olivia Craig yesterday. Congratulations. And we brought this up.

[00:54:31] We had brought it up with each other once before. Okay. We think Tucci may have lost the touch. When was the last time Tucci touched? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Ben get on mic. Hold on. We need to dig into this because I know Ben's gonna draw opinions here.

[00:54:48] Absolutely spotlight Tucci was good. This is a necessary tangent folks please give this to us. We have to talk about this. Since then it's a lot of huh? You guys should do a mini Patreon mini series on just Tucci's touches.

[00:55:06] Because obviously the man has pivoted into Italian cookbook and like travel show and all that. Like now I'm apron wearing Tucci. I'm making red sauce. We're talking about pesto. Worth was his last feature it sounds like. He's pretty good in Worth.

[00:55:24] It's sort of like a version of his spotlight performance where he's like the nervy guy. Yes. That's about as close as I would get to like a classic touch of the two. Can I just speed round this? It's tough. He was in the Whitney Houston biopic.

[00:55:38] He sure was as Clive Davis. Wait what? I didn't see that. Spotlight for me arguably his best performance. He's wonderful in spotlight. But then post spotlight he does his final Hunger Games performance in 2015. And then after that here's his entire movie career.

[00:55:53] Mastro cadenza in Beauty and the Beast remake. Merlin and Transformers The Last Knight. The Children Act submission of voice in Snow Dogs. Patience your mussies don't exist. Rosamund Pike's A Private War. Night Hunter. The Silence. What the fuck are these?

[00:56:11] These are like all the movies that I had to review at Witcher. Supernova. It doesn't exist or it's a disaster. The Witches. Zemeckis' The Witches. What the fuck is Jolt? It was like one of those. It's a cola from the late 90s I believe.

[00:56:29] Not to invoke Amazon again but it was like Amazon's you know. Girl boss action movie. United States ambassador in The King's Man. He does two promotional short films for Tangeray. Yes I mean which you know look. Money money money money money.

[00:56:45] Whitney Houston I Want to Dance with Somebody. Clive Davis. Seven Episodes of Citadel and then his most recent film is called Shalom Amore. I'm sorry. It's a podcast. It's a fucking marathon podcast. I'm just. It's not like Tucci you know can't get it back.

[00:57:04] But he has the last five years. He has the career. Actually you could argue like the last 10 to 15 years. He has a career somebody that like some producer who just never actually watched a movie from start to finish in their lives is like he's British right? Yes.

[00:57:20] Ben you said The Touch of the Tuch about Captain America 1 right? Was that when you. I can't remember when you said that. After he was in that was truly when it started to be like he works constantly. Yeah.

[00:57:35] And like you know it's sort of like some of its goodness some of its like. Are you sure it wasn't in the Devil Wears Prada episode? I mean that's where you coined your phrase that I think is so good.

[00:57:43] That's the moment where we all decided he should be on money. That's the moment where it was like this man needs to be on our currency. Look we all were in love. Here's what's most worrying to me. He's got two upcoming projects listed on IMDB. Yeah.

[00:58:00] One of them is the new Russo Brothers project. It sure is. The Millie Bobby Brown Chris Pratt robot movie. And the other one is the All Quiet on the Western Front guy's new movie where he plays a cardinal.

[00:58:12] I mean that one looks like it'll be you know like Emily saying like some kind of you know OK boring shit with British guys. Right. But the cardinal said no. Actually sounds really good. I want to surprise me too.

[00:58:27] As long as the series or the show is called The Cardinal Says No. The cardinal! I just want the best for Tooch. I do too. OK I found the episode. It was the terminal.

[00:58:41] Oh wow which you know I mean not a great film and not his best performance. But just a little touch does go a long way in that movie. Yeah it does. And he's taking the functional role and he's just giving a little paprika. Yeah.

[00:58:54] And then he was instead giving a little paprika to his frickin you know meatballs again. Well the Italian travel show got canceled right. I mean how much how much can he be doing that. Yeah sure. I think it finally got canceled.

[00:59:09] OK there's a lot of regions in Italy David. I suppose so. Do you think there are these like Italian grandma ladies who like make food on the top of a mountain and every six months like Eugene Levy's showing you know some sort of Italian dish.

[00:59:22] And then one of the celebrities like I am here with Apple. We're going to fuck it. Make some pesto on this mountain. OK here we go. I heard I heard that searching for Italy got canceled because the cardinal said no. I have the cardinal. No.

[00:59:38] Keep the Toochie out. His output is so bad. I don't want it to touch. The pope wants him to be in something good. He can't come back until he gets another Oscar. Maybe try to make another movie with Shalhoub. If it's on a streamer we don't like it.

[00:59:54] It needs to work with a studio. We don't have the Netflix here. Yes we have to touch it with the comedy. And definitely don't direct a movie without me hammering it. OK well can Russell Crowe visit? No no no. Kill him off the boat bed. Oh my God.

[01:00:17] All right The Handmaiden. The Handmaiden. Is set in 1930s Korea. Korea is still under Japanese rule. Right? Is it 30s? OK I was trying to. So it's never specified in the film but apparently that is what Park says in the interviews.

[01:00:35] And that seems logical to me in terms of the majority. Judging by the fashions sort of. That's like your one thing that you can really. And you got cars. You got obviously electricity. Yeah. There was. Yeah I mean because it the annexation happened in 1910. Yes.

[01:00:56] And then there was like a uprising in 1919. And I think then that's like I think I feel like things got very aggressive after that. After 1919 there's a treaty where it's like formalized. Yeah. You know I mean not with the consent of you know Koreans. Oh no.

[01:01:13] Japan declares that it is in charge of Korea. And then they you know Japanize. Japanize. I don't know how you know Japanization of the country starts to happen right there. Building railroads and they're doing all kinds of stuff. They're doing a little enforced industrial revolution in there.

[01:01:34] And you know building schools and stuff and creating all this infrastructure that you know. It sounds great until you're like oh yeah but it's all like with that emphasis on Japanese supremacy. You better be Japanese essentially. Yeah. Or at least be. And then there's the comfort women.

[01:01:52] Look this is all like immensely complicated. And that's why Plankcheck is going to go all in on it. Six part mini series. No no. I mean you know like read much more about this at your own leisure. Yeah. Is what I'm saying to our listeners.

[01:02:04] I mean so far as like the like I mean I do think that there is like debate or whatever about you know the fact that you know you do build all these schools and whatever that do eventually after after Japan leaves like they're still there and they can be you know actually controlled by by Korean people.

[01:02:24] But yeah I mean it was not good. It was not good. But it's left these all these crazy scars that linger in all kinds of ways on the country and the culture. Right. And on like ongoing relations. And there's really not much of that that we see.

[01:02:42] We don't really see the I mean we don't really see much of the wider world beyond the house in the film except for like at the beginning and then near the end once they're kind of on their little honeymoon and the mental hospital and all that.

[01:02:56] But like I think there is one point that I always remember from this that is sort of a little splash of cold water on everything where you kind of do remember the context of what's going on which is when they're on they're on a boat. What is that?

[01:03:13] Is it it's after it's after the wedding I think. It's when the count is on the boat with Lady Hideko. Yeah. It's their sort of honeymoon. And you see the men in the uniforms. They're taking the boat to Japan. And yeah.

[01:03:25] And then the Japanese soldiers come and like surround them. And you realize like oh yeah this is this is the context of what's going on. Those men have been fucking raping women for the last year or whatever they were there.

[01:03:39] And they're now like surrounding Hideko and she's just obviously like incredibly uncomfortable about it. And it's such a it's such a good like there's if you're gonna be very selective about historical political stuff like that is such a good moment I think to you know distill everything.

[01:03:56] I kept thinking while watching this movie of the thing George Lucas always said that like his grandest ambition with Star Wars was that when he was in film school and got really into Kurosawa that he was obsessed with the fact that those movies were meant for Japanese audiences.

[01:04:15] So they didn't do any sort of like cultural context setting for the audience. Right. And that he as a Westerner was watching these films like just dropped into this universe where he had to discern what the rules of culture were through their behavior.

[01:04:30] And I think this movie because basically the specific situation it devises is such a microcosm of this entire cultural moment of this house that is like at odds with itself.

[01:04:42] You're able to extrapolate so much more even if you're not coming into it with any historical perspective of like well here's the whole thing basically contained within 10 characters in a contained space.

[01:04:53] Yeah. And I think you know there are some sort of comps that you can look to if you're not like familiar with the specifics of this time period but I think like I think that the issue of you know like the uncle being the sort of like traitor basically and also just kind of trying to disavow his Koreanness.

[01:05:21] His Koreanness.

[01:05:22] And this sort of fetishization of his you know of this you know occupying force is so specific that it's really hard to think of like I mean you could think of people trying to deny their own culture or you know you know being ashamed of it for whatever reason but there's something about it in this in the setting that I just think is so yeah it's very specific.

[01:05:47] I'm curious about how it even works in the original text. No it's not. It's not part of the original novel. You can imagine a sort of class obsession. But it takes place during like peak... Like a new money old money thing.

[01:06:02] I mean it takes place during like peak British colonialism. You're like it could you know because I was I was wondering when I before I read anything about the book I was like is that an element of it because this is so much about colonialism and it's not.

[01:06:17] But yeah. No I mean but the thing then is obviously you know there are the people trying to act like aristocrats. Taking wealth and status. We are aristocrats we've been aristocrats for a thousand years you can't fuck it up yet. Right. It's the old money new money.

[01:06:30] But there's this added element of yes what you're saying where it's like it's not even cultural exotism. It's like the jealousy of the culture he was not born into.

[01:06:46] Yeah or you know I mean in a very very simplistic version it's like you know you're being bullied and so you try to emulate your bully. Yes. Yes. Right. Yes.

[01:06:56] I mean he's also a dirty collaborator who got a gold mine in exchange for helping the Japanese take over. I want to be clear I think this guy sucks. You think and he's calling right now. OK he's calling he's blowing up our phone.

[01:07:10] What do we say what do we say. OK let's work something very neutral like what's up dude. Yeah. Yeah. How's tricks. House tricks. Yeah. Right. We don't want to. We don't want to appear to be too friendly but we also don't want to put him on edge.

[01:07:23] I don't want to be on record saying anything you know that in approval of anything he's been up. I don't want to condone anything he stands for but I also don't think there's any reason to be rude for the sake of.

[01:07:34] To be fair I think it would be hard for me to do that but sure. Nice house. No. Yes. Yeah. Because that's more of a compliment to the interior decorator than it is to him. Right. But he did commission. Isn't it that he commissioned it.

[01:07:51] Was it was it that it was two houses that were conjoined or was it. I think it was no because they're talking about the architect like did this specifically for him.

[01:08:01] Like including the same thing he created because the idea of course of the trees around it is they will keep the sun from you know hurting his precious books because he's a collector of books especially dirty porn. Yeah. Now these books suck ass. I don't know.

[01:08:20] No kink shaming in this house. Yeah exactly. But he's definitely got a bit of a weird mindset about them. I think we're allowed to kink shame this guy at least for the way he expresses. Wait okay before we get into the porn.

[01:08:31] You want to hear something fucked up that I read when I was trying to find some background stuff about this. That include like along with the colonization and the neocultural takeover and everything.

[01:08:45] The Japanese introduced like cut down Korean trees and replaced them with Japanese species of trees that were actually like I don't know about invasive but like really threw off the ecosystem. Right. I just was reminded that when you're talking about the trees and I was like yeah.

[01:09:05] So like that just it's like so total and so like that just feels like an insult on top of injury. It's so dumb but anyway.

[01:09:14] This dude yes this dude's obsessed with books and he's in this weird position where I always get a little confused trying to parse this but he's basically bankrupted himself on his book collection. Yeah he's an idiot who doesn't know what he's doing.

[01:09:29] He's using his gold mine money which he barely you know earned. Yes he didn't earn it. He has all this insanity. Yes. Like I mean barely like it's like he doesn't know how to run a gold mine probably. No.

[01:09:42] He's using all the money from that to build this crazy house and buy all these books. It's truly like a dirty book addiction that now he is funding by forging books and selling forged copies of the books he owns to buy more books.

[01:10:00] Can you imagine like the Japanese general or whoever made this deal with him to give him the gold mine and they like check in on him 20 years later. It's like I wonder what that guy got up to. Like what did he make of himself.

[01:10:10] We gave him that gold mine. I'm in my octopus basement. Don't talk to me. So he has now he deco's his niece obviously right. And she married a Japanese woman.

[01:10:27] And the fortune lies with her and he is sort of raising her to eventually marry her so that he can get the fortune all to himself. Correct. Right. She's raised by her aunt. Marries this horrible man. Right. He basically ran to insanity and kills her.

[01:10:46] Yes. What right. What is presented to her as a suicide. She realizes it was a murder. And then he's like no problem. You slot right into that position and when you come of age I will marry you.

[01:10:56] Right. And meanwhile like oh we'll do all kinds of horrible things. And so he's sort of like a C plus D minus D you know kind of person. I give him an F. I give him an F. I think he's actually about as bad as people get.

[01:11:11] OK. Five point five. Right. Yeah. He's like a pitchfork. Five point five. Great. Great. I think about him is he's very mid. He's super mid. So can I talk about the eyebrows. Say PG 13. It does. It's a great rating.

[01:11:28] It's it's a decision I love in this movie so much for a film that is so twisty. Right. The actor playing this character is about 40 years old I think at the time of filming this movie.

[01:11:39] The uncle the uncle. Yeah. And they just give him big old man eyebrows. Yeah. Stark white Doc Brown wig and don't even really like put prosthetic wrinkles on his face. It's more like like theatrical stage makeup. Yeah. Like he doesn't look that much more convincing than he did.

[01:11:57] Go to the end of the film. No. And it's drag. Right. It feels very like archers to me.

[01:12:05] Mm hmm. Yeah. Right. Where it's this owning of like theatrical communication of visual ideas that this film can exist in a heightened reality with like very honest complicated human emotions things like sexuality that didn't exist in this sort of heightened more theatrical like pre method era of filmmaking.

[01:12:25] Yeah. But but you just accept this is a fucking old guy because I'm watching and I'm like is this gonna be part of the twist that he's a young guy pretending to be an old guy or whatever you're like.

[01:12:34] Another evil and weird thing and inexplicably I want to be old. Yes. I also think like the first time we see him which actually takes a bit of time because you know is with the snake. No she can. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:12:50] The first time we see the library and all of that. I mean there is a zoom in on him as he's like licking his pen or whatever. And it is so alarming.

[01:13:02] And so I mean I remember I looked at my old review for this which is not don't read it maybe. I don't know. I hate my I hate my writing.

[01:13:12] I did actually write down Looney Tunes a bunch which I in general I think is like a I think of Looney Tunes all the time when I'm watching Park. But but yeah that that is one of those moments where you're just like whoa where'd that guy come from.

[01:13:25] OK he's a character. Well that's it's like a different visual language than any of the character we've seen. Like here comes a guy who feels like he's out of a timber.

[01:13:33] So I want to talk about that moment because as a way of talking about this or first chunk you know what it reminds me of. Sorry sorry. You remind me of the bear in the shining like that shot.

[01:13:44] Yeah. And you're just like oh my God something incredibly perverted is happening here. Yeah. Right. You're going into this movie. You get this set up of OK. That's the situation over there. Uncle niece. You know money.

[01:13:58] Yeah. In comes the count a con artist who's like I have gotten inside of this and I'm going to marry the niece. Right. Yes. And he's like I need a lady from your Fagan ask Den of Thieves. Right. Of you know baby farming and female pickpockets.

[01:14:17] Yes. To come and pretend be a handmaiden to part of my scheme. Yeah. So if you're just watching this movie and you're like all of this is normal there are no twists coming. I get it. That's what you think the con is correct. Right. You're watching the movie. You're with the handmaiden.

[01:14:31] She's there. She's your point of view character. Yes. She's getting to know the mistress. She has nightmares. Right. She's you know getting to know the lay of the land. The other maids are mean right. Steal her shoe. Yes. All this stuff. She goes down to the basement crash zoom into the count him being like there's a snake. There's a fucking snake. Right. Right. They're like get out.

[01:14:51] They draw the bars and so you're like OK. So is this movie about they just thought they were going to steal some stuff right and get one over on a lady. The twist is clearly going to have to do with what is this guy's fucking right. And the twist is actually you don't understand all the crazy shit that's happening in here. Now of course the layers of twists are no no no actually there's a lot of awareness of what's going on. But that alone is such a nerve jangling. Yes. Things are not what they seem. Let's zoom out moment. But I agree. The first moment of true excitement.

[01:15:19] That bear moment in Shining it's a similar thing where you're like in a film that's setting up an incredibly bizarre reality and then fairly deep in it suddenly shifts the language of its own reality to something that feels more expansive than what you thought before. And it's like yeah I think it is important that the guy is doing such. Also he looks insane. He looks amazing. He looks insane but it's also like a very heightened unrealistic performance which isn't to say that it's not a good performance.

[01:15:49] But it's like an entirely different pitch. Yeah I mean it goes from this thing it feels like I mean whatever it feels like kind of Hitchcock feels kind of Rebecca. You're like oh spooky house like somebody died. You know there's this women's madness is haunting this house and and then you get to that and it just ups it to yeah something more both concrete and fantastical.

[01:16:14] And it's just that it's just the editing of that like you see the room you pan down this insane room with like this what's going on here there's a library and then there's like it's Tommy room at the end of it. You see him you see how now insane he looks and then there's a fucking snake and then the gate and all this and it's just like bam bam bam bam bam.

[01:16:33] And you have to be like it's purposely just completely overwhelming and disorienting and it's so it's such a good moment. And you've already set up this thing of like literacy being a big thing in the movie from almost the beginning. Yeah right. And then this idea of like she keeps on going with her uncle to have these like reading lessons to do these like practice readings. Yeah.

[01:16:56] And performances and it's for that's the thing.

[01:16:59] So much the movie it's a kid whatever she goes she has her lessons sure right. And then it's pretty deep in that she starts to say like you don't understand how stressful this is. And you're like what's the weird thing going on here. What can I comprehend about what's going on here. But it is a little bit of a distraction because there are like reveals to come from that.

[01:17:18] But you're like no but he's keeping your eye on off the ball of every scene you've seen is actually taking place in a different plane of reality.

[01:17:26] Because obviously the fundamental thing about this movie is that the male characters the men if you will suck cannot there. They cannot account for the women around them having intellectual capacity or like you know any kind of smarts.

[01:17:44] But at the same time they are like completely motivated by self-loathing whether it's about class or nationality. I mean like both of the main men in this are Korean men who you can forget sometimes because you know as you said uncle never speaks. They basically speak all Japanese.

[01:18:06] And the quote unquote count is which also like his name count Fujiwara like it's kind of fun. It's like very like you can't believe anybody who actually fall for this just because Fujiwara is like one of the oldest like fans like the most noble family from like you know.

[01:18:24] It's like if I called myself Lord Windsor or whatever. Yeah yeah you're like oh wow he must be really important. Right.

[01:18:31] It's just funny it's like oh yeah this guy who is this you know he's a working class whatever you know he's trying to jump up and jump up in social status and he's like I pick that name. And it's great.

[01:18:44] Grand old moneybags. That's what his name is. Rich Uncle Pennybags. They're like creating obsessed with creating these false sort of personas for themselves. So the types of men they wish they were and how they were perceived within cultures right. And which cultures they wish they were in.

[01:19:03] But then their other obsession is like looking at women and trying to shape them into the women of fictional works. Yes. The women are just right. You want to flatten them. There's literally a woman puppet in this movie obviously. Right.

[01:19:16] And you know all of their sexual desires are about control and stuff like that. But also they just can't actually think that these women might be due up to anything. Yes. Right.

[01:19:26] But then also the women can't account for each other's naivete and we can't account for their naivete at first. Like we're getting the veils lifted for us over and over and over again. Yes.

[01:19:36] And when you get the veil lifted you're like right of course. Of course. Of course. And the men of course are the last to figure it out and they only figured out when they're smoking poison together in a basement with no windows at the end.

[01:19:47] Look, dare I say it. Both of these guys. And they're like but at least I have my penis. Sorry. Dare I say it. Both of these guys. Uncle especially. Hmm?

[01:19:56] They're down bad with a horrible case of the Don John where they're so obsessed with what they see women do in porn. No I know. And they're just like why don't you act like the women in the porn I watch. Yeah.

[01:20:10] In this case the porn I read on Fancy Scrolls and lovely woodcuts and so on and so forth. But even it's not even why don't you act like this. It's I demand I shape you into this.

[01:20:24] Yeah. And it's the irony of it of this you know you have this Japanese colonizing force and then the lone actual Japanese person in this house is the one who has sort of been molded into this role and set up as this object basically to watch and to like get your rocks off about without ever touching her really.

[01:20:47] There's no as far as we can tell there is no actual you know. She's unspoiled technically. Sure yeah. But I mean but there's no he's not touching her he's not being you know there's no assault or anything like that.

[01:21:02] She is but like there is a need to be for him there's something about this whole kink of his that is so much about having this unattainable object basically that he's created himself and it's very.

[01:21:15] Even says to the other rich guys of just like there is no amount you could pay. Yeah. To be with her. Like it is just like aggressive objectification that is also trying hitting her aren't they. What physical. Well there's like the last. Yes.

[01:21:34] But yes they're not having sex with her. Like part of this weird power. Sometimes fantasy of just like what you're watching this very proper sort of like quote unquote pure unspoiled young woman recount the most like perverse shit to you. Right. And then the only.

[01:21:54] Tuxedos and twirl their mustaches. Physical contact you're allowed to make is like essentially physically punishing her for misbehaving right. It's like if they were to then have sex with her it would make her dirty. Right.

[01:22:07] Versus her describing the dirty thing to them and then them like she is a child like spanking her bottom and be like you use bad language. But I think the more interesting thing is them her you know whipping his ass because then you have this.

[01:22:22] I think that is more. I think that you know you can kind of do that. Oh you can yeah you can whip your bottom her bottom for a hundred bucks or whatever.

[01:22:29] But then it's like the real thing is to have this again like perfect woman this unattainable woman that you've you've basically trained to torment you psychologically and physically in this in this one scene.

[01:22:45] Like that this is some sort of literal self flagellation that you are enacting through this woman. The highest level is punishing yourself by allowing her to hit you for wanting to fuck her. Yeah yeah.

[01:23:00] And then when you add on all the political and cultural baggage on it it's just I mean it's fucked it's just like a stake to me. I'm just like this is so interesting.

[01:23:12] And the first time I watched it I was like well this is before everybody also got all into erotic erotic thrillers and stuff like that again. And I remember thinking while I was watching it was like this is an erotic thrill.

[01:23:25] Like this is exactly like the kind of movie that we've been missing for forever and ever and that nobody really you know certainly makes it in English language.

[01:23:34] Like it is you know I mean what I think what we all love and miss about the cheap 80s and 90s erotic thrillers that sometimes you could have a movie that was like what if a guy and a girl like fucked when they shouldn't have. Yeah right.

[01:23:48] You know they could be they could be real nothing. Right. This is a beautiful film. It's an incredibly complicated series of dynamics. Yeah. You're just talking about one element of the right right now. Like there you know.

[01:24:02] I mean I think the one I guess the one that I thought I was thinking of was was just basic basic instinct because of because of the element of queerness because of you know the sort of like complete like incredibly tenuous relationship between a man who thinks he has this woman you know under his thumb and then you know constantly being.

[01:24:24] But yeah. Yeah. But yeah.

[01:24:28] Playing roles which is a big thing I think that comes up in most of Park's films is like sort of the how am I supposed to behave or what do I want to convince other people I am right versus who am I really you know if I even am able to answer that.

[01:24:43] Yeah.

[01:24:45] The additional layer one of the many additional layers on top of this that's so fascinating is like as she presents to us at first it's like well this is someone who is so beyond sheltered that she is basically like stuck in a permanent state of like mental adolescence.

[01:25:01] Right. Yeah. Like she has just been so cloistered off from the world. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Well I don't I don't think she does like I do. This is this is one of the things I think it doesn't make this film not work for me.

[01:25:52] Sure.

[01:25:53] I just think it's like I feel like I have a different read on it which is just that like I think in many ways she is still an innocent and I think that if you're meant to think oh she's this you know saucy minx because she reads erotica to these men.

[01:26:06] It's like what I take away from it is that you can you can read filth and porn every day of your life for the benefit of somebody else and get in all these weird sex positions with a mannequin on stage and stuff and still not have a sense of what you are.

[01:26:24] Your own sexuality. exposed to sex all that a person could be and still, you know, when she realizes that she is in love with Suki, it's like, it still feels like a revelation. And there's something

[01:26:38] about it that feels young because of that, because she hasn't actually done anything that she wants to do. But the scene where the Count comes to her and says, like, let me flip over my cards.

[01:26:47] My plan was to seduce you and then, like, send you to an insane asylum. But I realize now I can never seduce you because you're not interested in men, basically. Right? A lot of movies would make that some, like, realization that comes to her later only through

[01:27:04] falling in love for real of, like, I never had a chance to even understand or consider my own sexuality because my sexuality has been, like, foisted upon me. Whereas instead, even if it maybe hasn't been expressed, it's very clear in that moment that she has some

[01:27:20] clear sense of at the very least what her sexuality is not and what it is that has not been given a chance to express itself. Also, like, how could you not be repulsed by all of that if that was when you were getting

[01:27:31] from, like, age six or whatever? It's like... Sure. It's probably not going to leave you with the healthiest opinion. Right. But I think there was not a sense of searching in her. And I think what's so interesting

[01:27:42] about the second time you see the first scene where they sleep together, when you understand that this was one of her moves, that it was her objective to seduce Suki. Yeah. Uh, that I think that is the moment where they fall in love with each other. Of course.

[01:28:02] That, like, it is... They are both attracted to each other and interested. This is good. Compelled. This is fun. Like, this isn't just performance or whatever. Yeah. It's so clear both times where it's... Right. She keeps on saying you're a natural, but the

[01:28:15] thing is just like, oh, this is... You said it better. I was just going to rephrase everything you just said. Do you think this character should have one good male character? This film should have one good male character who's kind of like, I'm nice. I'm a cool guy.

[01:28:27] I just hate the idea of little boys watching this movie and not having any character to look up to. Now listen. There are no positive male role models in this film. I just want little boys to be able to see themselves on screen. They're just not relatable. No.

[01:28:40] We've kind of skipped over the first part of the movie, but the first part of the movie is not really worth the discussion after you've seen the movie. You set it up quick. Exactly.

[01:28:50] I mean, but plot-wise, sure. But I think stuff like those pivotal moments, like the reveal of the uncle, like the first sex scene... The first time you see the sex scene. Right. Yeah. Like, one thing I did like is that, you know, well, okay, so Hitako speaks in

[01:29:13] Korean, which, you know, it might just be for the benefit of the main intended audience for the movie, but also like, it does seem like she does want to separate herself from her Japanese-ness just because of the way, like almost in rebellion to the way her uncle

[01:29:30] fetishizes it. Of course. She doesn't want to be the puppet her uncle is turning her into. But then, you know, so all of their scenes together are, you know, in Korean. But when

[01:29:43] they are in that first sex scene when she's like supposedly like, show me, you know, show me what a man wants on his wedding night, which is like, you know, I just think it's so cute.

[01:29:53] It's in a lot of the literature I've written about various fictional characters I'm interested in, you know, exploring in more depth. Flank check for us. But, you know, the one like they she does slip into Japanese just to, you know, say

[01:30:09] this is what the count would say, which I just think is so in like that is the and it's like literally when she's about to go down on her. That's when she switches into Japanese, which I just feel like I don't even I just think

[01:30:24] it's like a very interesting choice because, you know, suddenly there is going to be this girl sex act and it's kind of couched in this in this language and still like the presence or influence of this man.

[01:30:41] So it feels like kind of a it is like a means to get to having sex. But I just think it's yeah, it's it's really interesting. Well, look, to lay it out as cleanly as possible, right?

[01:30:52] Like fake count who's hired to help forge the books for this guy who drove himself into debt with the book collection. You get to the point where they have this sex scene. They clearly make the stronger connection.

[01:31:03] And then you still think this is all just part of a game. But he starts to feel conflicted about I don't know if I can put her up to this. Right.

[01:31:13] And then there's the sort of test where had to go ask her like, if you were truly in love with someone, would you still recommend that I go marry someone? If I was in love with someone? Right. Yes. Sorry.

[01:31:26] And then you just think it's the offense of her not fighting for her love. Right. After a couple scenes of like, Suki is like trying to interfere with the count making moves on her, but she keeps on jumping in and he's trying to stop her from ruining the

[01:31:40] whole fucking gambit. And and then when he when she thinks it is finally the move where they are going to get her committed to the institution, of course, in fact, everything is flipped on her.

[01:31:54] They make them think that Suki is the lady with a delusion of being a maid. Dotty. The thing you can that tips you off to that, the switcheroo and I to be fair, I only noticed

[01:32:06] this the second time around, but I did think it was weird the first time I saw it that like when they're on their honeymoon in Japan, they're dressing up Suki like a like a like not like a Japanese maid, like she's wearing like a kimono.

[01:32:20] She's wearing like a nice outfit. And then when they take her to the insane asylum or the sanitarium or whatever, she's there, you know, talking about the countess and, you know, like clearly meant to be set up to sound delusional.

[01:32:37] And she's wearing this costume and they're like, she thinks she's Japanese. It's so it's so weird and sad. They take her on their honeymoon like they sort of like force her into the psychological thrupple, knowing that she'll feel like she's the stronger emotional part of this.

[01:32:53] But if she didn't. So Suki actually knows what's going on, which is the later twist. Right? Yeah. If she didn't, she would seem so stupid here because it would be weird if you knew like the plan is to put her in the asylum.

[01:33:04] Can you put your clothes on for one sec? Can you just dress like the countess though? Just we're just trying. She doesn't know what's going on until late. No, she knows what's going on. No, she does. Like when we go. Yeah. When they when they flee.

[01:33:18] She knows that she's going to be committed. They know what's going on before they leave. When they escape the house. So my favorite scene in the movie, the hanging is the hanging when she hangs herself. My question is just when that happens in the timeline.

[01:33:33] But it's not they haven't eloped. It's right now that happens right before they elope. You're right. Because it's after they have the conversation on the eve of them getting right. I'm sorry. But the hanging we don't see until the second part. We do not see that scene.

[01:33:46] You see the tree in the noose. You don't see her. After this flip, right. We you know, we run it back and now we see everything through Hideko's side. Because the incredible line at the end of part one is I've always said she's a rancid bitch or whatever.

[01:33:59] Yeah, she's a nasty little bitch or whatever she says. And then we cut to baby. But I do want to go back just just I mean because yes, just plot plot plot plot. But I want to talk about filmmaking, you guys. Do it.

[01:34:11] I want to talk about the running away scene because I just think that there is it's a cool and you can't really talk about what talking about the second time it happens.

[01:34:19] But but when it goes into them leaving the house and going to meet the count, you know, in the boat and whatever, right, it goes to this, this sort of crescendo, the music swells in a way that has not up until this point.

[01:34:38] And it's very exciting because you know, they're running away. And the first part of it, we know, we know that, you know, this is very, this is going to be very pivotal, like the whole plot is coming together and all of that.

[01:34:49] But it does feel like whoa, whoa, whoa, suddenly, this is a lot of movie like suddenly this is this is very operatic. I mean, yes, the movie has been very big up until this point, but not in this sort of

[01:35:01] like period movie, like swell of two women running across the field and sure. All of the colors poppin. Yeah, yeah. And I remember I remember the first time I saw the film in that scene just being like, this is it was it was different.

[01:35:18] I guess it was about the time where I was like, this is gonna be one of my favorite movies ever. But but that scene also was just so I was just like, this is the most entertained I've been in so long.

[01:35:28] Like this is just so it's such a movie. It's so great. And then when you see the second time and they're making their escape, and this time we've seen the hanging and know that now they're in on this plot together.

[01:35:43] They are really in love and they're both, you know, consciously in love with each other and they are going about this switcheroo on the count intentionally. Then you're like, oh my god, that's why it felt so big the first time I just didn't have the whole picture.

[01:35:58] But like their performances in that scene are so ecstatic, which feels not quite earned yet when it's the first time. One of them should be plotting to commit the other one to. Yeah, both of them think they're plotting to commit the other. Yeah, yeah.

[01:36:12] And but then when you see the second time, you're like, oh my god, this is amazing. Like, I remember. In a coward's move. I like that this year when we did our blankie award episode, I gave a special commendation

[01:36:28] to both of them instead of nominating either one because I couldn't decide which one to put in. I didn't put both of them in. Really livered. Truly. And I think part of it too is like I maybe saw the movie twice that year when it came

[01:36:42] out and watched it twice again recently. But it's like scene to scene and certainly like act to act, you change your estimation of which performance is more skillful and complicated. You know? Yeah. Yes. They're perfectly matched too. They are.

[01:37:01] But sometimes you're just sort of like, well, this is the more complicated one. Not that they're not like totally in tandem. Kim Therese is so natural and charismatic and pretty and bubbly. Everything is on her face.

[01:37:14] And there is a part where in the second part, yeah, there's a part in the second section where you know that Hiruko's narrating and it's like, why is she so readable? Why she's not trying to hide any of this. She's not doing a good job.

[01:37:31] She's stomping around and being mad when we're out on our little painting walk. Like why can't she just be cool? But then that's ultimately the thing that's attractive about her is that there isn't all this ulterior motive and people are hiding behind, hiding behind all these different

[01:37:46] layers of, you know. And there's the scene where she grabs her by the cheeks and says like your mother was happy to have, you know, that's very like naked and emotional and like genuine. And she's like, how come a man has never been like this around me?

[01:38:01] Again, why aren't there positive male characters in this movie? Writing a Park Chan-wook at gmail.com. If you're just a little boy watching this, who are you supposed to want to be? Kylo Ren? If you're a little boy watching this movie, you're doing great. You're doing great.

[01:38:14] Little boys should definitely be watching this. You're off to a great start. Can I read a part of what I really like here from a film comment interview when this movie came out?

[01:38:22] He said everything that I want to say with this film is probably in the one scene where the women are jumping over the stone wall and notice how low the wall is. Had she ever wished Lady Heideko could have always jumped over that wall, but the deep

[01:38:34] rooted emotional trauma inside her was holding her back. And then this person, Suki, enters her life and she's able to find love. And through that love, Heideko gains bravery that allows her to jump over that wall in a single breath towards freedom.

[01:38:45] She also builds a little stairs for her with the suitcases. So she doesn't need her help, but it is still like they can do it together and it's no problem. Knowing so much of it's a matter of perspective about things feeling insurmountable. Yeah. Right.

[01:39:00] So as we're seeing things from Heideko, I just want to... My favorite scene is when she tries to hang herself. Yes. But we see from her perspective, yes, as we've all been discussing that she is far more self-aware than the naive woman we know.

[01:39:11] The conversation of, would you tell me to marry someone if I was in love with someone else? And before you think she's just hurt because she's in love and now you find out that this is the ultimate test of, I know she's trying to con me. Right.

[01:39:22] Does she care more about the money? Can I give her an out? Yeah. Can we break this ruse together? Like, yeah. Right. So then she goes from that into despondency hanging herself. You see her drop off the branch and then she doesn't fall all the way.

[01:39:33] She has not reaction. And then it cuts out to the wider shot and Suki is holding her by the legs. It's so funny. The immediate, because you feel so hurt watching that scene the first time. The second time it's like beyond painful. Yeah. It's like a gut punch.

[01:39:49] Yeah. Right. And you're just like, I don't want her to do something this awful. And then the fact that she can't go more than five minutes without coming in and saying like I need to tell you everything. But yes, yes.

[01:40:01] But just the physical comedy of her holding her and her being like, you know, I'm conning you. Like, you know, and then Hideko being like, you don't understand. I'm also conning you. We're going to put you in this scene. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Suki drops her. God damn it!

[01:40:17] You fucking asshole! And then she's actually hanging. Oh sorry, sorry. And has to like pick her back up. Because of like the widest shot you just see her like squirming and straddling. She's like, ah, ah, ah. And Suki's just sort of like pouting around. Stomping her feet.

[01:40:28] It makes me laugh so much in what is like the critical dramatic turnaround of the film. But it's that balance of tones that's just like that thing that he gets at. I don't know. It's once I just weirdly kept on thinking of Colonel Blimp while watching this movie.

[01:40:44] I get that. And I think part of it is like the vividness of like the colors and the sets and like owning the artifice. Colonel Blimp had that basement. Of the movie. Yes. With the octopus. He's got that weird basement.

[01:40:55] And the younger people playing older people and all this sort of stuff. But I also think it is that thing where like you watch those Pallen Pressburger movies, which you and I agree you watch them and you're like, these are like the best movies ever made.

[01:41:04] And part of it is that like they just owned, it was like everything that a movie could be and every single tone you could put into a movie. And just having like epic emotions and stakes and set pieces and comedy and danger. Just maximizing every element. The sound.

[01:41:22] Oh my God, the sound in this movie. This is another thing I was going to talk about. And this is really, you start to really notice it in that kind of, in that undressing scene

[01:41:33] when they're, and it's which goes on for a long time where they're talking and, you know, taking turns undressing one another. It's not, it's not sexy yet intentionally, but it is just because we are hearing like every fiber on the laces of the corset coming off.

[01:41:50] We're hearing that the earrings like, like, like clack in this very, very noticeable, very like tactile. It's almost like ASMR. Wow. He's the new. Yeah. And she, and also when she's dressing her for the first time and there's the whole thing

[01:42:05] about the ladies or the dolls of the maidens or whatever, like, you know, that she, all this is for my pleasure. As she buttons up, you know, every single little button and we hear this just the sound of the Foley is, is, is so amazing. And tooth filing.

[01:42:22] And then this will be all about tooth filing. Yeah. We skipped over the tooth filing entirely. There's the tooth filing. And then there's, I mean the initial comedy of she puts on the bra and she's like, God, this is like restrictive. And she's like, you think that's restrictive?

[01:42:34] And then you cut to the middle of her just going like, showing the corset. She's like, ah, you know, like rather than doing that in a gentle and sexy way. But he does have that thing.

[01:42:44] He is such a sensual filmmaker in that you can like hear the difference in textures. Yeah. Yeah. In any scene and whatever's happening. And then I'm just going to say it. This movie has like the best sex Foley work. Oh my God. Yes. Oh, sure. Right.

[01:43:03] The best sort of squishing. There's a lot of squishing. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I mean, it's a good sounding movie. It's just a thing that most people stay far away from. Like they're like, I'm going to put the soft music in over this and just completely remove

[01:43:16] that element out of sex. This might be a good time to talk about the sex scenes in general, because this was kind of the one sort of controversial element. I think about it at the time it came out. Wait, why? There was some discourse.

[01:43:31] There's some discourse over the sex scenes in this. And I remember being a little ambivalent one way or the other. I can see, I could see the points of criticism. And I think every time I've watched it since then, I kind of, I'm more and more like, no,

[01:43:46] every decision in this movie was correct. But yeah, I mean, I think, but there was, you know, there was an argument to be made that the sex was sort of male gaze-y and very, you know, intentionally framed and very, you know, have all these full body shots.

[01:44:02] And actually like, this is what a lot of people said about Blue is the Warmest Color when it came out. And I think that film is guilty of that. I did not like the sex scenes in that movie.

[01:44:14] But I think that there is, because of the context of the story, because of how much of this plot is about porn and erotica and like the, yeah, the, like, you know, the Shinga

[01:44:28] prints and stuff that the framing becomes kind of an echo of that, that they are reclaiming in a way. Also, as you said, David, you need to see the acts to see the difference in their behavior

[01:44:45] and their emotions in that they are not performing and they are forming this meaningful connection. First time it feels that it's shown to us in a more limited way. And you're still like inside of a con.

[01:44:56] And it starts out as role playing, both of them calling each other. And then the second time it's like this dance sequence that's like beautifully choreographed. And it's like you're watching two dancers who are so good at dancing together, which

[01:45:08] is obviously not, you know, something you can automatically be good at. Right? Like they're, they're, they're naturals. Like they keep saying for each other. Not to get too horny on Maine, but it is that thing of like, are you going to bring up Alfalfa again? Yeah.

[01:45:23] This guy, fucks. Alfalfa is an absolute poon hound. You can get as horny on Maine as you like. Let me cut all of that out. Nope. Here's what I was gonna say. Uh, it, it is that thing that is like hard to define or talk about.

[01:45:37] When people look for like sexual compatibility in relationships, I think it is what this film depicts very well, which is two people basically finding a way to communicate non-verbally. Right? Well, when I have sex, it looks like this. Absolutely same.

[01:45:52] I've never had sex that doesn't look like this, but it's, it's that feeling of like in a movie where, and Park talked about this, this is a talkier movie than most of his films. This has significantly more dialogue than most of his films, which is why it's important

[01:46:05] in, in movies that where he is going much longer, having characters express themselves primarily through gestures, through looks, through actions. This is a movie where people are talking around each other, but constantly lying right under

[01:46:18] like three different layers of performance to have this moment where suddenly like they're both conning each other. On top of that, they're playing a role playing game of pretending they're, you know, at least one of them is a different person in the sexual encounter.

[01:46:32] And then when that falls away, and especially the second time when you revisit the sex scene again, and it's like, oh no, this is the moment where suddenly they are communicating things to each other that cannot be communicated through words.

[01:46:42] So David Fincher always says where he's like, my big read is that people use words to lie. I think most dialogue isn't about people expressing themselves if a script is good. It's about people using words to trick each other. Yeah. Cool guy.

[01:46:57] I mean, the role that language plays in this, not just the Japanese and the Korean, but the fact that learning to read has this power that is mostly shown as being used for violence.

[01:47:13] And that there's this library that is like this, like gate, it's like this prison for her. Like you literally have to walk through it and there is an actual physical gate and stuff in order, you know, she has to go through that in order to escape.

[01:47:30] And then they have to destroy this collection in order to escape, which is, yeah. You're transcendent moment for a second. But that, yeah, that all of this has been used as a means to trap this woman, essentially.

[01:47:46] And that in a way, though, it is not enough just to get away from it to establish a life and a world and a, you know, sexuality outside of it. But in a way you have to almost incorporate, it's like you have to take a little bit of

[01:48:03] the poison in with it in order to make it your own. And like their passion is real. Their love is real. We believe in it. We believe in the first time through.

[01:48:14] Like I mean, I think that her actually falling in love with Hideko is yes, you're kind of like, oh, come on, you idiot. Like why are you doing this? You're going to ruin the whole thing. But it's because it is like it feels real.

[01:48:26] Yeah, she's still trying to con her. But the love is real there. Well, you're also like initially like, well, you're not going to get away with it. Right. Yeah. This is not going to work out for you. It's impossible. But but yeah, we believe that.

[01:48:38] But, you know, and I think the first scene with them when they first, you know, there's the kind of first seduction, like when they're talking about what the count would want. That is much more conventionally shot, I think, as a love scene minus the vagina cam at the

[01:48:53] very end. The POV, but the P means something different. Yeah. It was amazing. But but yeah, then after that, though, there is this really kind of almost self-aware staging of the sex scenes, which is to me just feels like, OK, we are in like we are submerged

[01:49:14] in this world of of this like purposely structured for men's pleasure, kind of erotica and porn and all of that. And we're going to make our own version of that. And it's not the structure of it that is it is that is bad or that's harmful to us.

[01:49:33] It's the point of view. And and we are going to reclaim this for our own, you know, our own pleasure and and satisfaction as to women as and do it outside of the power of these men.

[01:49:46] And so that's why I think that the framing of it and the formalization of it and these like symmetrical shots and everything are are are important. Yeah. But sex is also like a big part of his movies, but often the sex scenes in his films are

[01:49:58] the least erotic parts of the film. Right. And something like Stoker, the peak of the movie is like them playing piano together where he's able to come up with this sort of like this act that conveys the feeling

[01:50:12] of being in tandem with another person or the anticipation or the thought of it versus a lot of times I feel like his comedic scenes are a little bit comical. Like his other sex scenes are kind of comical. Yes. Yeah. Sorry. In other films. Right.

[01:50:28] And then in this it's like it's not the opposite, but it's like he wants them to be. There is a kind of humor, though, in in how unguarded they are in this, because it has

[01:50:40] been all these like careful little tiptoes around each other and the fact that they're just so like helpless in front of each other that they like are just like I you know, there's no holding back any emotion.

[01:50:50] It's sort of like, you know, watching somebody eat an entire candy bar and like one bite or something. You're just like there's something so human and sweet about it. Yeah. Yes.

[01:51:01] We don't need to dig in on this, but I'm just curious because I was thinking the same thing about like reading a bunch of the reviews of people at the time questioning whether

[01:51:12] this scene was male gazey and I was thinking about Blue is the Warmest Color as a comparison point as well. Am I wrong in my mental timeline that this movie comes out around the time the pieces were coming out? Probably true.

[01:51:25] About the actresses on Blue is the Warmest Color talking about because that was a thing where that movie came out, plays a con. Everyone was like you will not believe the intimacy achieved on screen. Steven Spielberg gives both of them the palm door along with the director.

[01:51:38] And then within two years later, the entire narrative of that movie is different. And both Sudhu and Arka Paligraf, I always get her name wrong, were sort of like we didn't feel comfortable. This felt exploitative to us.

[01:51:50] So it almost felt like when this movie came out and people were raising questions about the sex scenes, it was this defensive. Yeah. Like we don't want to be fooled again by this shit. Something really nasty was happening on set.

[01:52:03] It felt a little reactive to me in that sense. Sure. Yeah. I think that could be an element of it. I mean, now I want to look up if that. I think everyone is annoying about sex in the movies. I agree. Throw everyone into the sun.

[01:52:14] God, can you imagine though like if that came out? That came out in 2016 before. This film came out in 2016. But it came out, you know, I feel like. Well when was it the theatrical? Because I saw it for this. Like October 2016. Okay.

[01:52:30] So immediately before everybody lost their goddamn minds. It was one of the last normal weeks. Yes. This is the first film I saw at the Alamo Draft House. Oh wow. It was like opening week of the Brooklyn Alamo Draft House. Don't remember. Burger? Okay.

[01:52:49] They didn't have a special handmade menu. Okay. So part three of the film. We should mention, right, part two concludes as we see their sort of, you know, their genuine affection and their genuine conspiracy with each other. Yes, they go into the basement, into the library. Right.

[01:53:06] And trash it. Yes. Which is fine. If you look it up, Griffin, it's not helpful, I promise. Okay. Well but the movie came out in 2013. I think it feels about right. They talked about it as early as 2013.

[01:53:18] So I don't know that we can put an exact date on it. I still think this movie being in the wake of the reappraisal. That's all I'm saying. It was the worst cover. Exactly. That movie became this sort of like touch point of like, right.

[01:53:30] They destroy the library. They find that movie, the blue is the warmest color guy made about butts. They find it in there. They throw it in the river. Yeah. They break the criterion disk in half. Right.

[01:53:43] They're like, remember when they said this was a bare bones release but a special edition was coming later? And then the special edition never did because the movie got canceled culturally. Right. All that happens. But that's a very transcendent moment.

[01:53:53] They're like, can we still find the tweet where they said the special edition is coming? They find Bert Cooper's octopus drawing. They don't like that. That actually does happen. But they do like Mad Men. They talk about like, that really was like a golden age of television.

[01:54:08] In retrospect. Right. We didn't know how good we had it. There's a lot of dialogue in this scene while they're trashing the library, just weighing in on the culture of the 2010s. I wish I hadn't started this bit rolling.

[01:54:17] So as part three begins, we have The Count with Hideko. Wait, I want to talk. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I don't want to talk about it for too long, but I just want to talk about that scene too.

[01:54:28] Because I do and it's actually still gives me pause watching it now. Just the image of these women basically like doing the opposite of a book burning for a bunch of porn. Destroying high end fancy stuff. Erotica, prints, all of that.

[01:54:53] And you know, that does, that rings an alarm in my brain. I don't... I understand. I know exactly what you mean. Like it, you know? And I think that divorced from context, it is something that I feel like could be, I don't know, like misinterpreted or something.

[01:55:10] Especially because you have... These are the tools of her oppression. They are the tools of her oppression. It makes sense that she wants them destroyed. Specifically. And I think it's very specific to the character.

[01:55:18] And I think, you know, and I think the way that you see that there out in the film, it's that this film is incredibly filthy and clearly really into sex. Yes, I do not think this film is shaming you of sex. No, no, no.

[01:55:31] But I think that, you know, I guess it's just... And one of the things I need to stop doing, especially since I stopped being a film critic, is like thinking too much about what other people will make of a film.

[01:55:40] That's the advice I give to everyone at all times. Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about flaws. But I mean, I think I always have a mind, especially then you're like, you can anticipate a stupid discourse that's going to happen around something.

[01:55:50] But yeah, I think that, you know, the idea of these, you know, two queer women destroying porn as a means of their liberation, it just like that can be so misconstrued. And I just but I don't think that's what this movie is doing.

[01:56:08] If you're watching the movie, I think you understand what's going on. The other element of it as well is like this is coming right after Heidiko explains her childhood to Suki basically, like finally unfolds all these things. Right? Yes, yes, yes. Right. Here's what's actually been going on.

[01:56:25] Yes. And Suki's response is sort of like this anger stemming from I am so upset that there was no one in your life to protect you. Right? Yeah. It's like she wants to destroy the past that she couldn't prevent and the trauma that she

[01:56:39] couldn't stop her from going through because like here's this person who like had her mother and her aunt taken away and a guardian who then abused her where it's just like how was no one keeping you safe?

[01:56:52] How was no one caring about you and worrying about your best interests until this moment? It's like there needs to be an outward physical display of like... Yeah. But Burt Cooper did watch the scene and that's why he dies in Mad Men. Yes. Well, yeah, it's her.

[01:57:08] It's the one thing that she can do to actually prove her, you know, devotion to taking care of her. Yes. Well put. There's the sequence to begin part three between the Count and Hideko. They're in a hotel room full of money.

[01:57:22] He has this line when they're at dinner that I love where he's like, I don't even dream of money. I dream of being able to order wine without looking at the price. Like relatable King. Describing the difference between being rich and being wealthy.

[01:57:35] That's what that is to me. Like he's like, no, no, no, no, no. Even a rich person might check what they're ordering. A wealthy person doesn't even know what things cost. This guy could get upsold a steak by some stupid waiter who tells you'll be worth it

[01:57:47] when you pay for the sides, the money you save for not buying the sides. And he wouldn't even flinch when he got that bill. And he wouldn't hold a grudge for probably the rest of his life. Wouldn't become a recurring bit on the podcast he produced.

[01:57:58] It wouldn't become a story he has to retell his birthday party to every single person in attendance. His friends wouldn't get text messages to this day. Yeah. What did the steak cost though? Do you know the actual number? Ben, do you like this movie? Do you like Handmaiden?

[01:58:15] I did. I loved it. Yeah. Have you seen it before? Nope. Oh man. Congrats. Fucking saucy one. Owns bones in my opinion. Absolutely. It was a great way to start the day. It's hot stuff. You did a nice morning Handmaiden? I did indeed.

[01:58:29] That sounds like a euphemism for stuff. Cup of Joe in Handmaiden. That does sound good though. Yep. I spread it out over two nights. This rewatch. That's what I did with The Extended. I watched the theatrical like two nights ago and then I did The Extended evening and

[01:58:46] morning. Did you split at the part one, part two? Yes. I did exactly. I mean it makes sense but I just don't know how you would start. Like I would just want to keep watching.

[01:58:56] But there's such joy when you're doing something like that where you're like ah, a treat awaits me tomorrow night. Yeah. Also I had stopped it after already watching a previous version of it the night before. I haven't seen it in a couple of years. I have rewatched it.

[01:59:10] Give me a 4K of this movie. I saw this like two times that year and then hadn't seen it in eight years. I mean Criterion was doing a lot of Amazon releases for a moment there.

[01:59:23] And yes, the North American is out of print and The Extended's never been released and they should put out a new disc. I just wanted to shout out the interiors and the fashion. Wallpapers. I mean Park does good wallpapers always. I mean he's going hard on the wallpapers.

[01:59:39] The furniture, the architecture, the suits. The guys do look pretty cool. Especially the white bow tie. Eyebrows. Such a good look. I think he like purposefully you know kind of also looks like a poor person's idea of a rich person. Like you know that kind of like.

[01:59:58] Right, he's so over the top fancy. He's too snazzy. He's like got spats on or something. Yeah, well when he's found. So he you know obviously he is she gives him the knockout drops and he collapses mid-sex or about to have sex with her.

[02:00:13] That's the thing he promises her as a wedding gift. Her greatest fear is having her what little age she has. Go into the basement. Take it off. Right. Doesn't want to be in the basement. Because if you marry me and the worst case scenario everything goes wrong.

[02:00:26] Here's the ability to kill yourself through drops or at least knock yourself out. But when he gets knocked out and then the guys find him the next day. And he's got shirt no pants but he's got the garters and he's got the garter belts. Yeah. So fancy.

[02:00:42] I love that shot where he's like he's almost like lounging like a like a. He's just like. Hey. You mind throwing me though? Can you hand me my pants? He basically delivers on it. He's so hot. I'm in trouble aren't I?

[02:00:53] You guys look like a fancy fake samurai. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Oh this is the security detail. This is the this is the security. Right. He's like I'm so Japanese. I have samurai in the 20th century who are my bodyguards or whatever.

[02:01:17] The third part is really pretty short. It's really just them going down to the basement and smoking a cig. Right. I think the girls are, they got the money, they're on the boat, they forged the passport. She's a man now in the passport.

[02:01:32] Don't worry, I called into every office, they will not allow any two women to travel together. So easy to forge a passport by the way. Also so easy to apply a fake mustache. And then you just have this incredible,

[02:01:45] I mean, I think I'm watching this movie the first time and I'm like, okay, so are the girls gonna like, you know, go ham on these guys? Be gay, do crimes. Right, you know, like we're gonna get in the torture chamber and they're gonna be like

[02:01:56] chopping these guys up. And it's like, no, they don't even do like a Mr. Vengeance trilogy. I know. And there's something that's very, you know, by the end you're like, okay, we got our guys in one room, like truly in the most miserable, awful place

[02:02:13] you can imagine, smoking poison cigarettes, cutting off each other's fingers, just like killing each other literally. But also just like, that's the bed they have made for themselves. And the bed that the ladies have made for themselves is much nicer, you should say.

[02:02:28] Right, and the uncle is kind of like indignant and self-pitying and the count is just like, we fucking, we had this coming. Yeah. Like can you really be angry? He at least has the awareness of like. Yes, yes.

[02:02:40] Well the uncle is just like, so you had sex with her though? Like what was that like? He's like really pushing that. While chopping his fingers off with a big blade. Losing his mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like chopping his mind over and then it's like the perfect,

[02:02:51] this is all he wanted though. He would, like all he wanted was to hear about what it would be like to have sex with her from somebody else. And he can only understand it, you know, he's again, he's porn poisoned, he's.

[02:03:05] Well yeah, it's all weird Madonna whore stuff where it's like, the second the women you're attracted to perform your greatest fantasies, they are sullied in your eyes. In the eyes of these men who want to keep these two identities of women separate.

[02:03:21] But it's also the arm's length thing and it's like I don't even want this vision, this fantasy to be sullied by a woman's presence or her real like, you know, consents or anything. I want this to be told to me by a man

[02:03:35] and be like two degrees away from it and that's like what's gonna really get me off. And yeah, it's just, it's such a interesting way to embody his own shame at his identity and what he really wants. Cause that's again, the thing that separates him

[02:03:54] and the Count is that they are both pretending to be Japanese in this movie. But the Count is doing it as a means to an end. He, you know, doesn't really have. He really just wants to be able to order wine. He doesn't want to be Japanese,

[02:04:08] he's doing it so he can get this money. To impress the guy who wants to be Japanese. Yeah, yeah. And he is just completely blinkered and delusional at this point about who he is. You know, it's like the shame, whatever,

[02:04:23] whatever, you know, part of him wants to disavow being Korean is so metastasized by now that he can't even like, it's his whole identity. And that's sort of what separates them in the end. And of course he's laced his cigarettes with mercury

[02:04:39] and it's producing a lovely and very atmospheric sort of blue tinted smoke that kills them dead. Kills the shit out of them. Yes. I guess he wasn't inhaling, cause I'm like, how did he not die first? Well, but he is moving it around. I don't know.

[02:04:55] It's just a perfect romantic ending. I just love, he does like three cigarettes in like five minutes, right? Yeah, he's right. He's really puffing them. And there's no windows in there. If I'm the uncle, I'm like, no, no cigarettes. Right, identified this. And they do check out cigarette

[02:05:09] cause we see the blue cigarettes in his case before when he's being carted off by the fake samurai. And he takes the three normal ones and smokes them all together. He smokes them all together. Again, Looney Tunes shit. And yeah, but you know, we've also seen that he,

[02:05:27] you know, he hand rolls and he draws dirty pictures inside of his cigarettes, which is, you know, extra decadent, I suppose. And while this is happening, cut to the girls on a boat putting the balls in their vaginas, having a great time.

[02:05:44] I don't think there's any better way to put it. I mean, in the canon of great bell cinema we've covered on this podcast, it's really this and the Polar Express are the two great, can you hear the bells movies. I've been sitting on that joke for two days.

[02:05:58] I'm glad I didn't forget it. Wondering what that was gonna be. Can you hear them? Jingle jangling. Now, speaking of shame, it is worth noting as I believe you already alluded Emily, that pretty much as this movie comes out, a few weeks after it comes out in Korea,

[02:06:15] Kim Min Hee's affair with Hong Sang-soo, the prolific Korean director, comes out and she is like a ruined celebrity in Korea. This is like the peak of her stardom is this movie. This movie is a huge hit. This is gonna be the launch to her international stardom. Yeah.

[02:06:32] Yes, and then like the rumor hits the press, the two of them come out and publicly acknowledge it. And then she has since then not worked on a non Hong Sang-soo. Well, she got dropped by her management, I think. She got dropped by her, right.

[02:06:45] Her management company lost her endorsement deals. Right. She made a movie right after this with Hong Sang-soo called On the Beach at Night Alone, which Emily, you and I saw together. We did, yeah, yeah, yeah. And which I think is such an amazing movie. I did.

[02:07:00] Best actress blankie that year? I did. And she's been in, like, she's pretty much in all of his movies now. I mean, the man makes it. I'm just kind of meta about her. That one is very meta. That one's super, that one's most directly meta, but yeah.

[02:07:12] But yeah, there's a lot of that going on in them. And she remains an incredibly compelling performer, but it is crazy how like modern Korean, contemporary Korean society is so nervous or anxious or disgusted by infidelity or divorce and things like that.

[02:07:28] Well, I don't think he's been able to get a divorce. He's not actually divorced. That's part of it, that's part of it, right, right. So, you know, at first it was that, you know, they were separated. They were rejected by the court. Yeah, yeah. Which sounds cool. Yeah.

[02:07:41] And you know, Kim says, we love each other with all our hearts. We humbly accept everything, situations ahead of us and that will come. There is some- That's love, baby. I know. There is some rumor that it's not entirely just like, you know, like it is partly just,

[02:07:57] they've kind of just decided to do this, but who knows? But there was a timely and immediate backlash. Just work together and fuck it. Like, you know, fuck everyone else, like post scandal. But very strange and ridiculous. She's incredible in this.

[02:08:12] I hope for her sake that they never hit the rocks because if he can only be in that guy's movies, well, yeah, that might be. Look, if you're gonna only be in one director's movies, be in Hong Shing's movies, he gets to be in three movies a year.

[02:08:25] Yeah. He's just gonna, no, yeah. I'm not a huge, I'm not a huge Hong head. It's, you know, I like him. He's good. Haven't seen the last, you know, six or whatever. AKA, you know, 2022. But yeah, no, that's great. Cause you know, and I think that that scandal

[02:08:47] was largely not, did not really make it over here. So I think a lot of people saw that movie and are like, well, what the hell is she gonna be in next? Cause she's so amazing and gorgeous and just like such an incredible presence.

[02:09:00] And the answer was a bunch of Hong Shing's movies. Now, Griffin, did you know that Park initially intended to shoot this film in 3D? No, are you fucking kidding me? They should have just done 3D for the crotch shot. That would be cool.

[02:09:15] Because he thought the house was so cool and maybe he could have emphasized the perspectives of characters in a pronounced way. They couldn't make it work financially, he said. 2016 is, I feel like basically the tail end of any serious filmmakers taking this on as an experiment.

[02:09:30] Right, right, right, right. Right? Yeah, like is there something to be done with 3D? And I'm waiting for the fifth wave of 3D. It feels 3D without being 3D. It's fine. Definitely, it's popping off the screen. It's a popper. It was shot on digital,

[02:09:50] although they used some anamorphic lenses from like the 70s to sort of augment that or whatever. Park still thinks film is superior to digital, but you know, whatever. They often will say that and then they'll be like, it's cheaper, it's easier to control. It's, you know, we understand.

[02:10:06] Did I read correctly that it was at the time of its release the highest grossing South Korean film in the United States? Parasite has now obviously outgrossed it many, many times over. There's no way that's true because it only made $2 million in the US

[02:10:19] because it was an Amazon film. Yeah. They kind of only gave it a limited release. Where was the status? They at least put out the films though. They used to put them out. Yeah, yeah. I mean, frickin' Manchester by the Sea made like a lot of money.

[02:10:31] Like they used to make money sometimes. And Love and Mercy, no, not Love and Mercy. What's it called? Love and Friendship. That made some money. That like quietly made like $20 million. Yeah. I saw that one at like Niagara, weird. That was an Amazon too? That's weird.

[02:10:44] That was an Amazon. Yeah, well, it was like Whit Stillman, Spike Lee. There's a few others. Lonergan. Lonergan, you know, like these guys where it's like, hey, do you want to make a movie? Yeah. No, but I think this movie,

[02:10:58] I am always surprised by how many people I know who are not necessarily movie people who aren't even necessarily like, yeah, they're not like big park heads or whatever, but they have seen this. Like I think this movie is fairly well seen by a general movie going public.

[02:11:14] Sorry, my stat was wrong. It was the highest grossing park release domestically. That makes sense. The film outgrossed Stoker and became the highest grossing park Chan book directed film in the United States. I don't think, well, did Stoker really do that badly? I think Stoker did quite badly.

[02:11:33] Stoker did, I mean, and to be fair, we talked about this on an episode. And then Oldboy like only exploded on DVD. Yeah, yeah. It did outgross Stoker. It did. We're talking 1.7 to two. Yeah. Wow. I mean, it's not a huge jump here. So yes.

[02:11:49] What was the budget on this? The budget on this film was 10, sorry, yeah, 8 million, like $9 million US. It made like 40, mostly in Korea. Hell yeah. That's all up on the screen. That's amazing. Was big in the UK as well. Yeah. Premiered at the Ken's Film Festival.

[02:12:13] The Ken's Film Festival? The Ken's Film Festival. It's just Ken? George Miller's Jury. God, I love you, George. You're a good man. Decided to take a big poo-poo in the toilet that year. What one? I, Daniel Blake. That's so funny.

[02:12:30] Ken, take the palm, take it, you need two! And the Handmaiden. We talk about that movie a lot though. We're always bringing up Daniel Blake. Can't use the phone, can I? Fucking government. It's an all right movie. I'm making fun of it, but it's all right.

[02:12:48] But you know, Tony Erdman was obviously the big sort of hot movie that year, along with Handmaiden both got, well, Handmaiden got blanked. Tony Erdman got, I think, something. I forgot completely about Tony Erdman, but that movie is incredible. Wow. Actually, no, Tony Erdman didn't get anything.

[02:13:06] God. Really? Yeah, it was fucking, he gave it to, I, Daniel Blake, he gave the Grand Prix to the Xavier Dolan movie, It's Only the End of the World, the one that everyone hated. Where they cut to Mads Mikkelsen looking like someone just slapped him in the face.

[02:13:21] And then Xavier Dolan's response was, I'm insulted that you didn't give me a better award. Right, and they gave the jury prize. And now he's not even gonna make a movie anymore, so. Too bad. What he definitely doesn't want us to do is talk about him.

[02:13:33] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he can make a movie if he wants to. Andrea Arnold won the jury prize for American Honey, which is an excellent film. But weird to watch The Handmaiden and be like, eh, you know, but maybe it was polarizing.

[02:13:48] I mean, thing with juries is if you polarize, like, or a couple people don't like it, you're in trouble. We've talked about my theory though, that often the jury head at a film festival, especially when it is a director,

[02:14:01] will award the film that they are most impressed by because it's the film they could least see themselves being able to pull off. I love that theory. And like, so there's a- Is that why Spielberg gave it to Blue is the Warmest Color? Yes!

[02:14:11] And like, Spike Tim Burton gave it to Uncle Boonmee, things like that. Right, right. And you could see George Miller being like, I could never make something as stripped down as I Daniel Blake. I could see that too. I could never make a Ken Loach film.

[02:14:23] He could never just film a guy being like, can't call the NHS fucking government. Film was a smash hit in Korea, made $31 million. Perks most successful film ever there, outgrossing JSA's 29. Amazon distributed it here with their friends at Magnolia Pictures. These alternate cuts we mentioned,

[02:14:46] there was a ravenous reception, loyal fans demanded an extended cut, investors agreed because it was doing so well. They were like, come on, what do you got? What do you got? So that's where that comes from. Cool. But he, Parkes has made it clear

[02:15:02] the theatrical cut is his intended cut. He's got no beef with it, but he's like the rhythmic standpoint, in my opinion, theatrical. Very acclaimed film. In my opinion, snubbed at the Oscars. Yeah. People kind of be chill and be like, we're gonna throw a design nomination

[02:15:20] to a foreign film that looks so amazing. Yes. And like this could, what's going on? How is this not the most for me? I mean, I do think 2016 is a stacked year, but none of those things I think were nominated

[02:15:32] of the things I think of as loving in 2016. I think 2016 was like maybe the best year of that decade. I'm gonna say that without looking things up. I'm gonna just put it out there, 2016 was the best year of the 10th. Let's see.

[02:15:46] It's the moonlight, la la land year. Yeah, I'm looking what else here. Oh, wait a second. Oh, you're talking about that stuff. Sully landed in 2016? No, I'm just looking at your letterbox. Hail Caesar, Lobster, Tony Irvin arrival, Silence. Yeah, it's a great year. Jackie, The Fitz.

[02:16:04] Yeah, well, Shin Godzilla, you love that. The nice guys, I love Shin Godzilla. He's a really good person. Oh, what's this one here? What's that? Hi, Daniel Blake. Wait a second, I've injured myself. I mean, this scenario, it's a metaphor. So Manolo Dargis raved the first time

[02:16:26] a Park film got a New York Times Critics' Pick. She was not his biggest champion. The Times in general would just run at him. He would release Oldboy and the Times would be like, has cinema gone too far? Trash.

[02:16:39] Anyway, so just like, it did feel like a moment for him. Not that he's not a huge, massively respected name in the cinema world, but I don't know. It just felt like everyone was kind of like, have you made your opus, director?

[02:16:51] Yeah, I do think also, and I mean, it's sort of interesting that it did that much better than Stoker because I think it does sort of hint at what, you know, I think we almost, you know, post-Parasite certainly, but I think,

[02:17:02] and what we were talking about, the Netflix, the globalization of Netflix. Who? What? Netflix. Internet movie flicks. The internet movie flicks. But yeah, that there is, I think that there is just more openness in general to foreign films that can break through like this

[02:17:24] in a way that I think, you know, yeah, Oldboy was huge, but yeah, all on home video, it still felt like something that somebody had to, you know, get you into in a way. Like you had to be reading the right blogs or whatever to see it.

[02:17:38] And this does feel kind of like the handmade and walked, but like box office-wise. So Parasite could run. So yeah. A little bit, sure. And I do think also in general, like the, you know, the South Korean cultural wave in general

[02:17:53] has just had made it that much easier for South Korean films specifically to hit here. So we're going to play the box office game and I've decided that we will play for its second weekend. Two reasons. One, that was when it went wider

[02:18:11] rather than just a couple of screens. Two, the weekend before is Jack Reacher Never Go Back's box office. Which we covered. We covered in I'm sure immense depth. Yeah. So do you have the Korean box office as well? That's a great question. Can you do both? Why not?

[02:18:26] Por que no los dos? Great. Even though I have to go home. No, no, no, no, we're fine. We're fine. We're fine. Jack Reacher never go home. When did Nathan Shin Godzilla come out? September? Am I wrong? September. Oh God, now I have to look that up? Yeah.

[02:18:47] What an incredible, what an incredible. October in America. I can't, just like what an incredible year. Shin Godzilla and the Handmaiden. It's like July in Japan. Holy shit. You know what's crazy about Shin Godzilla? How much it rules? His eyes, his eyes are all googly. Yeah.

[02:19:00] He got google eyes. I love when he's like the baby slug. His second evolution. Yeah, when he's the weird slug and you're like, what the fuck is this? Yeah. Anyway. What a good movie. All right, the American box office. This is October, late October 2016.

[02:19:11] I like that he looks like an overcooked hot dog with googly eyes. He does, yeah. Number one is a Halloween film. A film celebrating the great holiday of Halloween. I'm gonna guess it's called Halloween. No. Fuck. It does have the word Halloween in it. It does.

[02:19:25] But no, this film has a. But it's not David Gordon Green's Halloween. No, this film has a comic take on the holiday. It's a comic. A beloved cinematic character, in fact, is, you know, peering down her glasses. Boo. What's the film called? It's a Madea Halloween. Madea's Hellerween.

[02:19:45] Hellerween. Is number one of the box office. That poster. In its second week in a row. A sensation. That poster that is a parody of the original Carpenter Halloween poster is incredible. I have called it out many times. I'm going to call it up right now.

[02:20:01] When are they gonna make Boo three? I mean, it's the funniest shit on the planet. Yes. There it is, if you can see it. I can't see that. It looks like a flu. Yeah. It's just the Halloween poster with Madea glasses. It just works. Amazing.

[02:20:21] I mean, the thing is they did other ones. They did like an Exorcist one, you know, and they're not as good. But there's nothing like this. It really speaks to how good the original Halloween poster is. But you could just like, you were like, I get it. Yeah.

[02:20:34] It wasn't as good when they did the second one. Anyway, all right, so that's number one. Wait, can we briefly talk about Handmaiden posters? Oh, well that one that's like the sort of with the trees. Yeah, that I was remembering that one. I'm gonna fucking buy that thing.

[02:20:50] It's so amazing. But the blocking of the kind of main poster where like they each have their hands on each other. Yeah, that's also an incredible poster. It's so cool. It's so good. No, both of them are fantastic. I just think that the screen style one,

[02:21:06] it's so perfect. It's pretty, it's also kind of like nasty. Cause when you like look at it, you see all that. There's a hanging person. The artificial eye Blu-ray, the menu is that. And the selections are the little figures of them.

[02:21:25] For if you're doing like play movie special features set up whatever, go on. Beautiful poster. Go on David. Number two at the box office was probably hoping to beat a Madea Halloween. In the second weekend. Yeah, in its second weekend. Too bad it went up against a Buzzsaw.

[02:21:40] It is a huge flop. The literary adaptation. It's a sequel stars one of our great famed actors. Stars one of our most famous actors. Returning to a role he hadn't done in a while. Oh, is it Blade Runner 2049? No, that didn't do that badly.

[02:21:59] That didn't get bodied by Madea. No, it didn't get bodied by Madea. This was a huge flop. This was a huge flop and it was a return to the same role decades later kind of thing. It's not Jack Reacher.

[02:22:10] Not Jack Reacher, but it is based on a book. It is based on a book. Yeah, because you said literary adaptation by one of our biggest stars. Yep, uh-huh. Yeah, fuck. What genre? Thriller, but like, you know, your heart rate will go 50 beats a minute to thriller. Huh.

[02:22:32] Museums, it's the great genre of museums. Is it the museum too? Genre of the museum. But I think they have some nights at museums in this series. They have some nights? Well, it's just him, but it's always him with a girl. It's a different girl every time.

[02:22:46] Oh, oh, oh, it's Inferno. Inferno! The third Robert Langdon downgrade movie. Yes. Felicity Jones. That was like a decade later, right? That's been decades since, yeah. I think we should watch these movies for the Patreon then. Here's why. They're about, one of them is about the Illuminati. Yeah.

[02:23:05] And I feel like you have a lot to say about the Illuminati. Do I? I don't know. No, but do you? The way that the, listeners, the way that the Zoom is set up right now is that Griffin and David are looking at me

[02:23:16] like they are two panelists on a Q&A. And Ben is behind you on the screen. And I guess I'm on the side of the room that Ben's on, so they just pointed at me and said, pointed at me and said,

[02:23:27] you have a lot to say about the Illuminati. No, Griffin and I look like we're doing a talk back at the IFC. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's a joke for 10 people. Here's my counterpoint to the idea of doing the Robert Langdon trilogy. I, during Deepest, Darkest Lockdown,

[02:23:46] watched The Da Vinci Code. Da Da Vinci Code. Da Da Vinci Code. For the first time for our friends at the Can I Kick It podcast. And that movie is the most boring shit I have ever seen in my life. That's good, we'll get some Zs.

[02:24:00] It is interminable. We'll get some Zs. 15 hours long. May I remind you about the reaction to us discussing the moon landing? Yeah, everyone was chill about it. Everyone was really cool about us just sort of poking at fun at that movie. We definitely didn't have a panic attack

[02:24:17] before even releasing that episode. Ben, now that you're reminding me of that, I've come around. I think we should do the Robert Langdon trilogy. Illuminati. All right, number three, Jack Reacher Never Go Back. Number four, a surprise hit, an action thriller of sorts.

[02:24:31] It is funny that you just have Tom's, Hank's, and Crue's grasping at straws. Right, being like, don't you want my book? Fucking slashing her head at the top of the box office. Number four, look, it's like a crime thriller. Okay, surprise hit. Bit of a surprise hit.

[02:24:48] Boring title. Boring title. One of those movies that people are more and more kind of like, hmm. To that kind of rule. Kind of fun, you know? It's this movie. Tell me about the star of the picture. You know, he's had his ups and downs.

[02:25:01] His swings and roundabouts. I like him a lot when he's good. I can't deny that he's sometimes been bad. Sometimes he works for the UPS, maybe a bit of a mailman. Sometimes, but also he's a filmmaker in his own right. Interesting.

[02:25:19] And this is one of the movies he made where you're like, okay, so this is kind of like a pay job and then it was actually like a hit. Like a moderate hit. There's a lot of talk of sequelizing it, but it's never come to pass.

[02:25:32] Probably because this guy's fucking busy. Oh, it's The Accountant. The Accountant. The Accountant. Ben Affleck is The Accountant. Which was like quietly a big tittie hit. Yes. Made 150 worldwide. It's crazy how much this week or this month or whatever is completely memory hold for me.

[02:25:47] And as someone who's still working and covering culture, I usually remember all those movies pretty well. I feel like you were at The Verge. Yeah, I was in the very, very tail end of my career. Which was a great time for you. It was amazing.

[02:25:59] You were on the verge of leaving The Verge. We had some very chill dinners at that, I remember back then, you know, where you were like, how's work? I believe I was co-hosting the Mr. Robot After Show on Facebook Live. I remember that.

[02:26:13] Which I believe drove me insane and I think this all impasses statute of limitations I'm talking about. Yeah, no. Yeah, it went absolutely bananas. Yeah, it was cool. But anyway, maybe that's why I didn't see. The Accountant. The Accountant? You didn't see Ben Affleck though?

[02:26:31] Yeah, I didn't see him. You didn't get your books in the accounting. No, I did not get my books balanced. Number five at the box office, a prequel horror film that is so fucking good. Ouija Origin of Evil. That is correct. Had to be the answer.

[02:26:45] Mike Flanagan's fantastic film, Ouija Origin of Evil. Yeah. Which combines the sort of, you know, like vintage throwback-y scares of Mike Flanagan with a blessed hour and 39 minute running time. Which he stopped giving us. The wit scrote. So good. The Korean box office briefly. Number one, The Handmaiden.

[02:27:10] Fuck, so they beat Boo? Yeah, well this is July or late May, so it's a little, you know. But Dia hasn't shown up yet. I'm sure Korea and Japan have very chill opinions on Madea. I'm sure Madea is always coming out there. No, I have no idea.

[02:27:26] Madea's cultural reach. Number two, comic book sequel, terrible. Number two is a terrible comic book sequel. Some people like it. It's not a Marvel. Wait, what's his face? The Doctor Strange. It's not the good Doctor. No, no, no, no, because that was the first Doctor Strange, nevermind.

[02:27:45] Wait, but it's not a Marvel? Well, it's- X-Men Apocalypse? The movie that embarrassingly caused me to originally coin the term A Gentleman's Six. That was the first movie I ever applied that to. Yeah, that was not A Gentleman's Six in my opinion. Which is almost incriminating, yeah.

[02:28:00] Number three is a Korean film, a horror film that fucking rocks, and I feel like they keep threatening to remake in America. That I bet you have seen, Emily, maybe not. 2016 Korean horror film. The director is Na Hong-Jin. It's about a policeman investigating mysterious killings

[02:28:22] in a remote village. I don't think I've seen it. Yeah, what movie is this? It's called The Wailing. Oh, no, yeah. I've never seen it. It's cool. Big hit. All right, now the weirdest thing is the fourth and fifth. Both American films, both like rom,

[02:28:40] well, this is a rom-drom. May 2016. It's a rom-drom. Yes. Based on? It's based on a novel. It's not a Sparks? No, but that vibe. It's in that mode. It's about a couple who, there's problems beyond their control, health issues, but they love each other.

[02:29:03] It's not The Fault in Our Stars? No, they're older than that. They're older than that? Health issues? It stars a Game of Thrones and a Hunger Game. Oh, it's the fucking, what's it called, Me Without You? Emilia. Emilia Clarke. That's how old that is. And Sam Claflin.

[02:29:19] And Sam Claflin, yeah, yeah. Claflin and Me Before You. Me Before You. I can't believe that movie came out that long ago. Yeah, that's upsetting. And a passage of time. That movie also did weirdly well in North America. It did quite well. People liked it.

[02:29:33] It was one of those things where it's like, people actually do like these. Was it a brain problem? I think he's in a wheelchair, but I cannot remember the reason why because I didn't see the film out of disinterest. Number five is a charming indie musical.

[02:29:48] Interesting, an indie musical. People love this movie. People love it. I have always found it to be okay. But that's how I feel about this director always. I think it's a bad movie? Is that my opinion on this movie? You think it's a bad movie. Do I?

[02:30:03] Is that my opinion on this movie? You tell me. Do you think you know what it is, Emily? I think I know what it is, but. What do you think it is? Well, I mean, it's 20, I think it's La La Land. It's not La La Land.

[02:30:14] It is not La La Land. I think La La Land is a good movie. And I'm with Emily on that one. I don't think it's the best movie ever made. I like when it was remade in 2022 as Babylon. Yeah, a better film. I think Babylon is, yeah.

[02:30:31] And David, also, I'll say you and I do both agree on La La Land in that it is not the single best film ever made. Sure. I'm firmly in the camp of it not being the number one best film ever made. That's your Arnie and Carl Leathers moment.

[02:30:44] Come on, what is this? What is this? It's an indie. Charming indie musical. How many of those are there? But not like a diegetic musical? Yeah, that you're fucking in a band, they're singing songs. Oh, Sing Street? Sing Street. Oh, that movie's cruel. It's okay.

[02:31:02] That movie's fucking cruel. I can't believe it was blown up the box office in Korea. Well, it's number five, so all right. It's doing pretty damn well. Punching above its weight. I think that movie's lovely. This is the thing, anytime I have looked at stuff that hits

[02:31:13] in Korea and Japan, it tends to be shit like that though. And then you're like, why is there this mandate, especially back then, less so now, that the only thing that's gonna hit over there are fucking Marvel movies or things with Tom Cruise in them.

[02:31:32] Everybody loves musicals and people kissing. And those travel well. It's true, people love to kiss. People love people kissing. People kiss everywhere. Number six is- The Universal Language. Number six in the Korean box office. Universal Language. The Angry Birds movie. Oh my God, I remember.

[02:31:51] I had to see the Angry Birds movie. There's also a Korean horror film called Horror Stories 3, appears to be an omnibus. There's also an American horror film in the box office called The Angry Birds Movie. A horrifying cultural export. There's a sweet sort of grandma movie called Canola

[02:32:11] that is a Korean film. And there's kind of an awful Angry Bird movie called The Angry Birds Movie. There is a film called Our Times. Can't really find much on that one. Remember how much later the Angry Birds movie came out after everybody had stopped playing Angry Birds?

[02:32:26] Yes. They took the idea out of the spitch too long. It was like a decade, it's incredible. And then they barely kind of squeaked out a success and they were like, so sequel time, right? There's a hunger for more of this.

[02:32:38] It'll take another three years to get a sequel into theaters. We don't think we've overstayed our welcome. I wonder if you ask an average teen today if they know what Angry Birds is. I think a teenager today would view Angry Birds the way we view a- Mario Brothers?

[02:32:53] No, the way we view, yeah, exactly. Like fucking gramophones. Yes. Number 10 at the Korean box office, of course, is the prequel to Brahms' The Boy 2, some would be called The Boy. Obviously I'm only a Brahms' The Boy 2 stan. For me, the series starts with Brahms' The Boy 2.

[02:33:13] It's a bit of a New Hope episode once, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. A bit of Final Fantasy. Haven't seen that. I did see that director made the Orphan sequel and I did watch that. Oh, interesting. You liked that, right? It was okay. First kill?

[02:33:26] I mean, you just like to see Isabel Ferman pop off. Yeah, I wanna see Orphan last kill. Well, but then it's over, sad. She's like 95. Sure. But she still looks, she's still a little... All right, that's the box office. I gotta go make dinner.

[02:33:41] But is there any closing thoughts on The Handmaiden from any of us? I love it. It's very good. I'm just like, this is why I want movies to be. It's a full fucking meal. It's a full meal, that's exactly, yeah. It's thrilling, romantic. Movies can't always be this

[02:33:57] because then we might be overstuffed, you know? And then once in a while, you get served a five course meal like this. You know, the thing about this movie though is it's so good and it's so entertaining that you sometimes make the mistake of thinking

[02:34:10] you could watch it with, say, a parent. And then... Right, because you're like, oh, it's a period piece. It's a period piece, it's so beautiful. Like, it's so fun. You won't believe this twist in the middle and then you're like, oh no.

[02:34:23] I mean, this hasn't happened to me personally, but it's like, oh no, I'm watching this scissoring scene with my mom. Titties. The film does in fact have titties in it. I will say that I've never made the mistake of watching it with someone

[02:34:38] who I wouldn't feel comfortable sitting next to while watching it, but this is like, in the seven years since this movie came out, this is one of my default go-to anyone ask me for a movie recommendation movies. Yeah.

[02:34:53] It's just the fact that I know it's on Amazon all the time and if they're like someone who's like open-minded but maybe has not really delved into foreign film. You know what movie might blow your mind? The Handmaid of Men.

[02:35:03] Yeah, and they're like, what do I have to know about it? I'm like, nothing. Right, and I'm always just like, okay, take your Apple, type this in, B-R-A-H-M-S colon T-H-E colon B-O-Y colon I-I. Yes. I comma D-A-N-I. Will it make sense if they haven't seen The Boy, then?

[02:35:20] I'm like, we don't talk about The Boy! Is The Boy's name Brahms or is Brahms the name of something else? We'll find out sometime later on a different episode. Mama, sorry, I hate saying that. Yes. Wow, that sucked. Emily, my mother, mother, please. Emily? Yes?

[02:35:38] Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. When does this episode come out? Late August. Okay. Why? No, I'm just like hoping, I was gonna ask if you- You'll be flying back from Edinburgh. Yeah. No, I was gonna ask if Emily wanted-

[02:35:52] No, if I have anything to plug. I was gonna ask if you want to plug Strike Solidarity but then I'm also like, imagine if it's over when this comes out. Starting to feel like maybe no. Well, we'll find out about your guild. What's going on?

[02:36:06] Well, if you guys go on strike- We're recording on the day that the strike decision is supposed to be made for that. I think it's tomorrow now. It's 12. I think it's tomorrow, it's Thursday. Oh really? Why do you think it was today?

[02:36:14] Well, because Fran has to get back from Venice where she was partying with Kim K. Jesus. But if you guys go on strike, there's an argument it actually might accelerate the end, right? That's good for you guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. That's good for you guys.

[02:36:26] Oh God, this is terrible news. The writers are generally rooting for you guys to go on strike but I will not always hold my opinion right now. I think we need to burn the whole system down. I just have some terrible news to share with the podcast.

[02:36:36] Occasionally we get like an exciting deadline update while we're recording and we get to capture the reaction on mic. Problems with Boy 3? No. I regret to inform you and I hate that I'm the one who has to give you this news. Jimmy Weldon died. Who's that?

[02:36:51] I don't know why this is happening. Why are you laughing? It's getting to me so much. A man died. Disgrace. Jimmy Weldon died. Jess, I'm gonna have to read it. Jimmy Weldon died. You're really losing it. I fucked up my own thing. And I gotta go.

[02:37:07] I just looked it up. The voice of Hanna Barberi's Yankee Doodle Duck. He was 99 years old. Something about the headline. Voice of Hanna Barberi's Yankee Doodle Duck. It's not Yankee, it's Yak-ee Doodle Duck. Yak-ee Doodle. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I was cold reading that.

[02:37:24] Hanna Barberi's Yak-ee Doodle Duck was 99. I know I'm cutting off the first couple of words there. He was a 1940s era disc jockey. Like they invented discs pretty quickly before. He was one of the best ever too. I'm sorry if this sounds disrespectful. Yeah, he's a good guy.

[02:37:41] You bookmarked this death so hard in my mind that I'm gonna be waiting on the edge of my seat during the in memoriam at the Oscars next year. Yeah, right. Yak-ee Doodle Duck. Yak-ee Doodle Duck. That's embarrassing. So this guy gets Yak-ee Doodle Milkshake Ducked afterwards

[02:37:55] and it turns out he was bad or something. I disavow everything I said about him being good. Of course. But I think Yak-ee Doodle Duck's an unproblematic thing. No Twitter muster stand. Yeah, I'm sure there's no bad Yak-ee Doodle Ducks out there. Prayers up. We gotta go.

[02:38:09] Emily, thank you for zooming in. Thanks for having me. Sorry I couldn't be there in person. I think this setup works. It does. It took some time to get it working. But Ben, you made it work, baby. Love you. Thanks, Ben. Ben's the best in the biz.

[02:38:25] Ben's the best in the biz. It's sort of weird to not see Ben at all. I know. Yeah, it is weird. Turn it around, I don't know. How do you feel about not seeing Ben at all? This is what it was like in the old studio days

[02:38:36] when our UCB studio was so small that you had to be in a different room and he would just pipe in. In a smaller room. That fucking sucked. Yeah, it wasn't great. I mean, it wasn't good. It sucked ass. Anyway, I'll be over here mopping up the floor.

[02:38:51] Our AC's busted. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to promote the show and produce the show. I don't know why I said promote. I should've said help.

[02:39:03] Thank you to JJ Burst for our research, AJ McKee and Alex Barron for our editing, Leigh Montgomery and The Great American Doll for our theme song, Joe Bowen, Pat Reynolds for our artwork. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit,

[02:39:17] including our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, where we are doing the Oceans movies and also Little Drummer Girl this month. Yep. I think we probably just did that. I think that just happened. Probably finishing Oceans. Yeah. Yeah. Tune in next week for the end of Part Jambook

[02:39:32] with Decisional Leave with guest Tatiana Maslany. That's right. Which is a really exciting one. Wow, cool. I think it's a good episode. She's real cool. She's a cool ass person. She's a real cucumber. Cool ass. She's a real cucumber. And I'm sure she's gonna be thrilled

[02:39:48] to hear us describe her that way. She's a chiller. She's a chiller. She's a real cucumber. And as always, thoughts and prayers to Stanley Tucci. We hope you get the touch back. And also to the family. Maybe he can be the new Yaki Dibble Dek. That's the answer.

[02:40:04] Bye.