It is inspired by the 2002 novel Fingersmith by Welsh writer Sarah Waters, with the setting changed from Victorian era Britain to Korea under Japanese colonial rule.

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.

Hideko lives with her Uncle Kouzuki, a Korean man who helped the Japanese take over his country in exchange for a gold mine.

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".

While being instructed by the Count, who takes advantage of Sook-hee's illiteracy, Hideko unexpectedly falls in love with her.

He tortures Fujiwara in his cellar with his collection of antique bookmaking tools and presses him for sexual details about his niece.

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.

[25][26] In the United Kingdom, the distribution of the film was handled by Amazon Studios and Curzon Artificial Eye.

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".

[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] 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.