one of my absolute favorites!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Chan-wook Park used to be such a great director, being the man behind the success of the fantastic 'Revenge trilogy' and most notably Oldboy (2003) as his ultimate masterpiece. Unfortunately The Handmaiden is not a masterpiece, just a bunch of blatant in your face social commentary.The problem lies not in the cinematography, which is top notch the entire film. It is visually beautiful, with great use of color and indoor cultural Asian scenery, and some fantastic costume design. The music is also a very good emotional piece as is usual in a Park film. However, the best parts end here. You could say that the complex multi layered non linear storyline is well structured narrative, but i disagree. It basically shows the same events two times from different angles and with a couple of scenes added to it that would otherwise have been a spoiler. The story is constantly twisting because of things that we couldn't see but there is not an ounce of refinement in it. ( That person wants to sell that one out for their own gain, now another person wants to sell that one out for their own gain, now two persons pair against another to sell that one out for their own gain ). This entire immoral construct never ends as there is little to none character development.All our four main characters are rotten to the core and this never changes throughout the film, yet somehow Park decides the two women are the good ones and the two guys are the bad ones? Such an incredibly lazy political message which is something that i would never have suspected from an artist such as Park, but it happened. The 'Count' ends up being the fall guy, for being dumb enough to not realize he is being deceived, which is hardly a surprise since men do not seem to realize anything at all in this film. The uncle is just a disgusting sadistic psychopath who also sees his downfall because of his own plain stupidity. The two women are not very likeable either, albeit in a more subtle way since their unlikeable nature is due to the fact that they only seem to care about money but all the while not showing their sadistic sides. The way the final events unfold is not a very subtle way of creating a kind of feministic statement that they cannot be pushed around by men.The erotic part of this film is absolutely utterly useless. There are numerous graphic sex scenes between the two women which do not enhance anything in this pretentious story but only seem to serve as a bunch of pornographic material good enough to get into the minds of those feeble minded and blind enough to like this film. Disgusting sexually oriented pictures and disgusting dialogue are constantly thrown at the viewer in order to gain the thumbs up only because of this pathetic form of pornographic flattery. It is a motion picture, which is supposed to be an artform, yet this is a mere disguise for the mindless pornographic nature of this film. I am fortunate enough to have a brain smart enough to not take the bait.It sure is pretty to look at, and might entertain those who want to see female nudity and simulated sex scenes between females, but for those smarter among us, this really is a poor excuse for a motion picture that is supposed to open our minds or make us better understand the human condition.

Had this remained a revenge movie with a twist I would have appreciated it a lot better. But then it enters lesbian soft porn territory and the movie takes on an entirely different tone. I can just imagine what theater movie goers must have gone through when the love scenes between Lady Hideko (Min-hee Kim) and Sook-hee (Tae-ri Kim) took center stage. When you're not ready or prepared for it, the sex scenes can inadvertently turn a promising night out into a virtual catastrophe. The story could have been told without the explicit sex and perhaps might have been more enthralling if the affair between the Japanese heir and her Korean handmaiden been more nuanced and suggestive. I didn't particularly care for director Chan-wook Park's "Oldboy" either. He has a visually captivating style but his choice of subject matter ought to come with a viewer discretion warning.

This is all about greediness and its betrayal. During the first part of this movie, it kind of doesn't make any sense; however, during the second part is when things start to get way better. I have to though that even though some of the translations in English are sometimes grammatically incoherent, one, as a viewer can still infer or grasp the message. The softness of language in this movie, draws you more into the setting, atmosphere and characters. On the other hand, the acting skills shown by all of their actors and actresses are simply flawless and amazing. I don't what is it about these asian actors that they don't overplay nor fall into too much screaming or cheesy acting. This is something else!I highly recommend this movie to understand better the depths of our most innate human emotions and nature.

If you are not in to pornography, you should definitely not watch this movie. Even if you do like porn this movie will still probably flop for you. The entire plot seems designed to set up elaborate and frankly quite disturbing sex scenes. Mercifully, it wasn't interesting enough to keep me awake and I fell asleep about half way through. Perhaps the parts I missed were better, but even if the second half was literally the perfect film, that would not redeem the parts that I was unfortunate enough to watch.