Asian Film Series: The Handmaiden

Asian horror films have long set the bar through their creation of creative and thought-provoking pieces that speak to longing, fear, and desire in subversive manners. In spaces where Asian voices are often not recognized, these films leave lasting, painful impressions. Agassi, or The Handmaiden, is a recent addition to that lineage. Debuting at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and directed by Park Chan-wook, the celebrated South Korean auteur behind Oldboy, The Handmaiden is a slick, “dazzlingly complex” psycho-sexual thriller about con-women and men in a Korea colonized by imperial Japan. Elaborately constructed and painstakingly beautiful, this film received acclaim for its attention to class, villainy, eroticism, and liberation.

Link to full programming: http://bit.ly/sfvoices

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This spring, we are exploring the multitudes of stories that make up the Asian/Asian American diaspora and challenging who is allowed to speak themselves into the socio-political atmosphere of America and abroad. By inviting to campus the voices regularly silenced by structural forces, we hope to illuminate struggles won and yet to be won, to showcase the power and compassion audible in contemporary Asian life, while still recognizing there is much more work to be done in this country and beyond before the voices of our most marginalized are amplified.

PanAsia Solidarity Coalition is the student organization for Asian, Asian Americans, and diaspora Asian peoples in general. Our work is centered around consciousness raising, political education, and organizing. Our community includes peoples from the Pacific Islands, South, Southeast, West, Central, and East Asia, peoples from both sides of the ocean, and peoples who are multiracial, transnational adoptees, or monoracial.

DISCLAIMER: While PanAsia is open to all who claim the AAPI identity, we do not claim to be representative of the entire AAPI community, neither as an organization nor in our programming. In the words of Gloria Anzaldúa, “people in different regions name the parts of the river/person which they see.” We present what we know, and we welcome you to bring your own.