The Handmaiden

In 1930s Korea under Japanese occupation, Sook-hee arrives at a remote estate where a withdrawn Japanese heiress, Hideko, lives with her controlling Uncle Kouzuki. Hired as a handmaiden, Sook-hee is secretly part of a con led by a suave impostor calling himself Count Fujiwara, whose plan is to win Hideko's trust and claim her fortune. The house is full of strict rituals, guarded books, and coded cruelty, and the conman's scheme depends on close access. As loyalties shift and relationships deepen, the neat lines of the plot blur and the characters' motives grow more tangled, turning what started as a simple swindle into something much harder to predict.

Directed by Park Chan-wook, the film was adapted by Park and Chung Seo-kyung from Sarah Waters' novel Fingersmith, with the setting relocated from Victorian England to 1930s Korea. It premiered in 2016 and showcases meticulous period detail and a strong creative team behind its choreography and visual design.

The film did well on the international festival and arthouse circuit, helping broaden the director's audience outside Korea and drawing solid attention from specialty distributors and cinephile crowds, though wide mainstream box office comparisons vary by market.

Critics and audiences responded strongly, reflected in its high user rating and frequent praise for the central performances, especially Kim Min-hee and newcomer Kim Tae-ri. Reviewers noted the film's focus on sexual politics, class exploitation, colonial power dynamics, illusion and deception, and the way desire operates as leverage. Its storytelling uses layered perspective and stylistic flourishes to keep viewers reassessing what they thought they knew.

The Handmaiden has had a noticeable cultural footprint, prompting conversations about queer representation in mainstream Asian cinema and spotlighting Kim Tae-ri as a breakout talent. Its lush visual language, erotic intensity, and structural twists are often cited in discussions about modern Korean filmmaking and have influenced how international audiences think about genre blending in contemporary film.