Part 1

In Japanese-occupied Korea, a con man operating under the sobriquet of "Count Fujiwara" plans to seduce a Japanese heiress named Lady Hideko, then marry her and commit her to an asylum to steal her inheritance. He hires a pickpocket named Sook-hee to become Hideko's maid and encourage Hideko to marry him.

Hideko lives with her Uncle Kouzuki, a Korean man who helped the Japanese take over his country in exchange for a gold mine. Kouzuki then uses this wealth to feed his obsession with rare books, selling forgeries to accumulate further money and books. Sook-hee's main job is to help Hideko prepare to read for Kouzuki's guests. Returning frustrated from a reading, Hideko demands Sook-hee sleep next to her. The two end up making love, under the pretext of preparing Hideko for her married life with the Count. Sook-hee begins expressing reluctance about the plan, but when Hideko herself suggests she loves someone other than the Count, Sook-hee insists on the marriage. Hideko slaps her and violently throws her out of the room.

When Kouzuki leaves on business for a week, Hideko and Fujiwara elope. After cashing out Hideko's inheritance, it is revealed that Hideko's naïveté was part of the con. She and Fujiwara double-crossed Sook-hee and convinced the asylum that she was the "Countess" to have her committed in Hideko's stead.

Part 2

A series of flashbacks show that Hideko's "reading practice" was Kouzuki teaching her to erotically read sadistic pornography since she was five years old. The flashbacks show a regimen of psychological and physical abuse that gradually degrades the sanity of Hideko's aunt, who is eventually found hanging from a tree in the yard, and so Hideko takes over as the reader for the auctions. When Hideko questions the description of hanging in a book she has to read, Kouzuki tells her that he murdered her aunt using torture devices in the basement after she attempted to run away.

In the more recent past, the Count realizes seducing Hideko would be impossible and instead includes her in the plan to elope and then split her inheritance. When Hideko expresses her fear of her uncle, the Count bribes her with a vial of opium with which to commit suicide so that she can never be taken to the basement alive, calling it a "wedding present". Hideko demands the Count find her a girl to hire as a maid, to commit to an asylum in Hideko's place.

While being instructed by the Count, who takes advantage of Sook-hee's illiteracy, Hideko unexpectedly falls in love with her. Hideko tries to confess her love, but when Sook-hee insists the marriage go forward, Hideko throws her out of the bedroom and then tries to hang herself. Sook-hee saves her, and both admit to their plots. Hideko helps Sook-hee write a letter to her family to say she has teamed up with Hideko, asking for their help in carrying out a plot to get Hideko and Sook-hee away from the men who have been manipulating them. Hideko shows Sook-hee the books she was forced to read, and Sook-hee begins destroying the library. Hideko calls Sook-hee "her savior" and joins in destroying her uncle's collection.

Part 3

After leaving Sook-hee at the asylum, Fujiwara and Hideko eat together at a high-class hotel, where he tells her of his past and asks her to marry him again, this time as Sook-hee, as they have switched identities. He also reveals that Sook-hee will be dead within a few days, causing Hideko to question Fujiwara's desires. Sook-hee's friend Bok-soon sets a fire at the asylum and poses as a firefighter to rescue her. Hideko doses Fujiwara's wine with drops from the opium vial, causing him to pass out and allowing her to leave with her money. The women reunite and flee together, disguising Hideko as a man to avoid detection.

Kouzuki captures Fujiwara after receiving a letter from Hideko detailing Fujiwara's deception. He tortures Fujiwara in his cellar with his collection of antique bookmaking tools and presses him for sexual details about his niece. Fujiwara makes up a story about making love on their wedding night, while a flashback shows that he watched Hideko masturbate before cutting her hand with a knife to stain her sheets with blood, refusing to consummate the marriage. When Kouzuki presses for more details, Fujiwara convinces him to give him one of his cigarettes, after which he disgustedly refuses to give further details. Kouzuki notices the cigarettes are producing blue smoke, and Fujiwara reveals that his cigarettes are laced with mercury, and the toxic gas in the smoke kills them both.

On a ferry to Shanghai, China, Sook-hee and Hideko celebrate their newfound freedom by making love once again.

Locations

The film was shot in both Japan and Korea. Kouzuki's mansion with combined elements of Japanese and British architecture was filmed in Kuwana in Mie prefecture in Japan, using the exterior of the Moroto Seiroku Mansion and CGI to augment exterior details.^[10] Known as Rokkaen (Japanese: 六華苑), it was designed by British architect Josiah Conder and built in 1913.^[11] The interior of the library and the staircase leading to Hideko's bedroom were built as interior sets. The cherry tree from which Hideko's aunt is found hanged was in the gardens of the hospital on Sorok Island in Jeolla, South Korea.

Home media

In the United Kingdom, it was 2017's fifth best-selling foreign language film on home video, and the year's third best-selling Korean film (behind Operation Chromite and Train to Busan).^[29]

Critical response

The Handmaiden received critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 96%, based on 225 reviews, and an average score of 8.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Handmaiden uses a Victorian crime novel as the loose inspiration for another visually sumptuous and absorbingly idiosyncratic outing from director Park Chan-wook."^[30] On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 85 out of 100, based on 40 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".^[31] The Economist described the film as a masterpiece.^[9] Benjamin Lee of The Guardian ranked it four out of five stars and described it as "a hugely entertaining thriller".^[32]

The film's numerous sexually explicit scenes between the two main female characters were criticized by Laura Miller at Slate, who described the scenes as "disappointingly boilerplate" and featuring "visual clichés of pornographic lesbianism, [the actresses'] bodies offered up for the camera's delectation."^[33] However, The New Yorker's Jia Tolentino said that "the women know what they look like, it seems—they are consciously performing for each other—and Park is deft at extracting the particular sense of silly freedom that can be found in enacting a sexual cliché."^[34]

Listicles

The Handmaiden was listed on numerous critics' top ten lists.^[35]