美国国家公共电台 NPR Action Film Director Park Chan-Wook Transports Erotic 'Handmaiden' To 1930s Korea

Action Film Director Park Chan-Wook Transports Erotic 'Handmaiden' To 1930s Korea

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And now a lesbian love story turned into a film by a South Korean director based on a best-selling novel set in Victorian London. It's called "The Handmaiden," and Neda Ulaby is going to tell us more about it.

NEDA ULABY, BYLINE²: This gothic drama brims with double crossings, a secret library, a sinister³ uncle and a woman wrongly stashed⁴ in an insane asylum⁵.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FINGERSMITH")

SALLY HAWKINS: (As Sue Trinder) Let me go. Let me go.

ULABY: The book, "Fingersmith," is incredibly popular here in the U.S. and in Britain, where it's been adapted into a movie, a play and a BBC television series.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FINGERSMITH")

HAWKINS: (As Sue Trinder) I was a fingersmith, a thief.

ULABY: Ultimately, it's a romance between a female pickpocket⁶ and a wealthy young woman she was hired to dupe.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FINGERSMITH")

RUPERT EVANS: (As Richard Gentleman Rivers) You're going to become her friend, persuade her to trust me, to run away and marry me.

HAWKINS: (As Sue Trinder) Why me?

EVANS: (As Richard Gentleman Rivers) A fingersmith with a heart of gold.

ULABY: As he read the book, Director Park Chan-wook began to imagine it set during Japan's occupation of Korea.

PARK CHAN-WOOK: (Through interpreter) Not too far into the book, I came across this scene.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE HANDMAIDEN")

MIN-HEE KIM: (As Lady Hideko, speaking Korean).

ULABY: A tender moment between the pickpocket posing as a maid helping⁷ her mistress with a hurt tooth.

PARK: (Through interpreter) It felt very sensual. And this marks the moment when these two women, these two people, have started to fall in love.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "OLDBOY")

ULABY: Park Chan-wook is not exactly known for romance. His most popular movie in the West is "Oldboy" from 2003 about a man held captive for years and his eventual⁸ bloody⁹ revenge. But the director sees parallels to "Fingersmith."

PARK: (Through interpreter) It is still a story about an individual who is fighting against what is handed by fate.

ULABY: Adapting a thriller¹⁰ by a British lesbian novelist, says Park, was actually a delightful¹¹ change of pace.

PARK: (Through interpreter) Maybe it has to do with the fact that as I get older and spend more time with my wife and my daughter, I feel myself becoming more mature and more fascinated and drawn¹² to feminine values.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE HANDMAIDEN")

KIM TAE-RI: (As Sook-Hee, speaking Korean).

ULABY: For her part, novelist Sarah Waters remembers how she felt when she learned that a leading South Korean director wanted to adapt her novel.

SARAH WATERS: Well, kind of surprised.

ULABY: But Waters felt the adaptation made sense. The violence in Park's earlier movies resonated with the Victorian novels of sensation that inspired her, like "The Woman In White" and some books by Charles Dickens.

WATERS: They're actually - they are very violent, those novels. There's a sort of a - there's often an actual physical violence in them, but there's often the violence of a society that's very divided on class terms, on the gulf¹³ between rich and poor, with some people living kind of desperate lives.

ULABY: And, Waters says, she's pleased that the movie "The Handmaiden" retains its feminism. Some male directors in recent years have gotten flak for their representations of lesbian stories, like "Blue Is The Warmest Color." But this director wrote the screenplay with a longtime female collaborator¹⁴ and says he screened it for feminist¹⁵ friends before releasing it into the world.

PARK: (Speaking Korean).

ULABY: Director Park Chan-wook says he really wanted to stay true to Sarah Waters' original vision.

PARK: (Through interpreter) If I follow the path that she has laid out for me, I could not go wrong.

ULABY: Neda Ulaby, NPR News.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 sinister   

adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的

参考例句：

• There is something sinister at the back of that series of crimes.在这一系列罪行背后有险恶的阴谋。
• Their proposals are all worthless and designed out of sinister motives.他们的建议不仅一钱不值，而且包藏祸心。

4 stashed   

v.贮藏( stash的过去式和过去分词 )；隐藏；藏匿；藏起

参考例句：

• She has a fortune stashed away in various bank accounts. 她有一大笔钱存在几个不同的银行账户下。
• She has a fortune stashed away in various bank accounts. 她在不同的银行账户上秘密储存了一大笔钱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

6 pickpocket   

n.扒手；v.扒窃

参考例句：

• The pickpocket pinched her purse and ran away.扒手偷了她的皮夹子跑了。
• He had his purse stolen by a pickpocket.他的钱包被掏了。

7 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

8 eventual   

adj.最后的，结局的，最终的

参考例句：

• Several schools face eventual closure.几所学校面临最终关闭。
• Both parties expressed optimism about an eventual solution.双方对问题的最终解决都表示乐观。

9 bloody   

adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染

参考例句：

• He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
• He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。

10 thriller   

n.惊险片，恐怖片

参考例句：

• He began by writing a thriller.That book sold a million copies.他是写惊险小说起家的。那本书卖了一百万册。
• I always take a thriller to read on the train.我乘火车时，总带一本惊险小说看。

11 delightful   

adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的

参考例句：

• We had a delightful time by the seashore last Sunday.上星期天我们在海滨玩得真痛快。
• Peter played a delightful melody on his flute.彼得用笛子吹奏了一支欢快的曲子。

12 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

13 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

14 collaborator   

n.合作者，协作者

参考例句：

• I need a collaborator to help me. 我需要个人跟我合作，帮我的忙。
• His collaborator, Hooke, was of a different opinion. 他的合作者霍克持有不同的看法。

15 feminist   

adj.主张男女平等的，女权主义的

参考例句：

• She followed the feminist movement.她支持女权运动。
• From then on,feminist studies on literature boomed.从那时起，男女平等受教育的现象开始迅速兴起。