History Film / TheHandmaiden

* SlippingAMickey: Hideko tries to [[spoiler: drug Fujiwara by pouring the concentrated opium into his wine glass, [[SubvertedTrope but he simply does not drink any of the wine]]. She [[DoubleSubverted forces the issue by sipping from his glass herself, then kissing him and forcing it into his mouth]].]]

** Considering that Kouzuki [[spoiler: dies at the end of the film]], it's likely that [[spoiler: Hideko]] will be his heir and inherit the house. In that case, Sasaki's days in that house are numbered.

* AllMenArePerverts: Uncle Kouzuki runs an entire cottage industry based on selling, presenting, reading, forging and even partially reenacting traditional Japanese pornography to a close circle of rich buyers, all sweaty while listening to those scrolls.

* ArousedByTheirVoice: Hideko's uncle forces her to read from pornographic novels--and reenact certain scenes--for the entertainment and demonstration of other rich men. Every time she is shown performing, the men are held enraptured and are shown awkwardly shuffling to cover their arousal.

* BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork: Kouzuki brings Fujiwara back to his estate after being tipped by Hideko as to his location, and then Fujiwara [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled kills himself]] [[TakingYouWithMe and Kouzuki]]. Sook-hee and Hideko are able to escape without needing to kill either of them directly.

** Hideko acted as the well-meaning noblewoman by favoring Sook-hee over the other maids and making sure that Sook-hee knows this. Eventually, Sook-hee became the most important person in her life that Hideko would rather kill herself than send her to the asylum which she originally had in mind.
** Sook-hee is eager to serve Hideko and was on board with Fujiwara's plans but as the heist progressed, she had doubts as to what extent is she fooling Hideko: does she serve her as part of her plan, or was she serving her because she genuinely wants to and loves her? This caused her to be infuriated with Fujiwara, then forcing herself to focus on her original plan when she thought that Hideko was truly in love with him.

** Hideko fears "the basement" so totally that she will not do anything to defy Uncle Kouzuki. Fujiwara offers her a vial of concentrated opium to persuade her to assist him, [[CyanidePill which will kill her painlessly and quickly if drunk all at once.]]

* BlackComedy: Hideko is ultimately DrivenToSuicide and attempts to hang herself, only for Sook-hee to literally catch her and hold her suspended. In their ensuing conversation Sook-hee is so overcome with emotion that she drops Hideko, so Hideko completes her fall and begins to choke on the rope and thrash about. It takes a few seconds for Sook-hee to remember her and rush to pick her back up.
* BondingOverMissingParents: Hideko and Sook-hee talked about their mothers which also led to both women acknowledging their attraction to each other but didn't result in confessing it just yet.

* BriefcaseFullOfMoney: Full of Hideko's entire inheritance, which Fujiwara cashes out after their marriage of convenience.

* CallBack: One of the gross books that Kouzuki the pervert has Hideko read contains a description of lesbian lovers inserting [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Wa_balls Ben Wa balls]] in each other. In the last scene, Sook-hee and Hideko are doing exactly that.
* CanNotSpitItOut: It takes a lot of effort and serious emotional trauma for both Sook-Hee and Hideko to finally express their feelings to each other.
* TheCaper: The entire premise of the film. Or at least so it appears in Part One.
* TheCasanova: Fujiwara ''claims'' that he could get almost any woman to submit to his wishes. [[InformedAbility Other characters acknowledge that he probably could]], [[SubvertedTrope but he says that Hideko is a woman that he could not control in this fashion, and so never even tries]].

** Sook-Hee starts as a greed-driven petty thief, interested mostly in material wealth and [[OneLastJob getting herself out of the thieving business]]. She never expected to fall in love. Eventually, her feelings make her unable to continue with the entire con and she is so guilt-ridden, she explains the entire plan to Hideko. Which in turn saved her from ending up used by Hideko, who also realized her affection for her "maid".
** Hideko goes from referring to herself as a corpse and being clearly suicidal to a free spirit in loving companion of Sook-Hee. While originally she was more than willing to send the poor girl to a mental asylum just to run away, she almost hangs herself, not able to carry on any further with her plan which would hurt probably the only person she loves and who loves her.
* TheCharmer: Count Fujiwara's main skill as a ConMan is being suave and extremely convincing. When he can't charm someone right away, he's not above playing open cards, explaining his entire original plan to Hideko and thus charming her anyway - with his honesty.

** The opium Fujiwara promised Hideko.

** The butterfly hairpin that Boksun bequeathed to Sook-hee was used to pick the locks on her leg cuffs which enabled her to escape the asylum.
* CherryBlossoms: The film liberally uses both categories of symbolism with the cherry tree outside of Hideko's window. It's heavily associated with life and death, being the tree Hideko's aunt and later Hideko hanged herself on. Hideko mentioned in her narrative that she arrived in Korea along with the cherry tree from Mt. Fuji, showing a foreigner forcibly having to re-establish herself in a strange land. After Lady Kouzuki died, Hideko said that the cherry blossoms bloomed brighter and longer past the period when they should wilt, marking this a new period of her life which she didn't choose once again, being the lector of her uncle's collection of pornography--his prized possessions that show his allegiance to colonialism and Japan. Several shots focus on falling cherry blossoms with the noose as Hideko and Sook-hee pass by it while they're leaving the estate and her old life.

** Her immediate dismissal of Fujiwara’s compliments during their first actual conversation while mirroring back his exact same words that he said to her uncle, something that they’re both aware that she eavesdropped on.

** She went from despair to exasperation when she realised that her suicide attempt was halted as she simply tells Sook-hee to let her body fall.

* ConsummationCounterfeit: There's a scene from Sook-hee's perspective where she hears Hideko and Fujiwara having sex next door and Hideko's sheets are shown to have a bloodstain on it the morning after. In the replay of this scene from Hideko's perspective, however, it's shown that Hideko pulled out a knife to prevent Fujiwara from getting into bed with her, masturbated on her own to make it sound like they were having sex, and then cut her hand with the knife to leave the bloodstain on her sheets.

* CreepyUncle: Hideko's uncle Kouzuki has incestuous designs on her.

** Fujiwara offers Hideko a vial of concentrated opium as an incentive when she explains [[FateWorseThanDeath how much she fears "the basement"]]. A few drops of the opium will render her unconscious for hours, and the whole bottle will kill her painlessly and quickly.

* ADateWithRosiePalms: How the wedding night actually went - Hideko pleasured herself, not even allowing Fujiwara to look at her naked body. Sook-Hee only heard the scream of ecstasy, while Fujiwara lied to Uncle Kouzuki, saying it was both too beautiful to describe and what kind of husband would tell a story about such an intimate moment anyway.

--> Respected Uncle, it always pained me to see you straining to speak flawless Japanese before the Count from Nagoya, and even to quiver your voice like a nobleman. So, I’m happy to inform you that you no longer need do so. That man is the son of a Korean farmhand. Oh, did my gift arrive safely? Please tell this to my gift in Korean: I’m afraid that in real life, no woman feels pleasure at being taken by force. But, for sending me Sook-hee out of all the girls in the world, I feel [[CallBack slightly]] grateful.
* DefrostingIceQueen: Lady Hideko. She was a cold and ruthless woman who regarded young women like Sook-hee as expendable and not significant enough to be missed, to falling in love with her that she would rather kill herself when Sook-hee rejected her by choosing to continue with the heist.
* DespairEventHorizon: Hideko was able to endure all of Kouzuki's abuse in silent despair, but when Sook-hee chose to continue the con after she confessed her own feelings, she could not bear to continue either living in Kouzuki's house or to betray Sook-hee. Taking the rope she had long stored for this occasion, [[DrivenToSuicide she attempted to hang herself]].
* DestroyTheAbusiveHome: Hideko decides to show Sook-Hee the contents of the library before they run away. The maid ends up so enraged by the content of all those books and scrolls, she starts to tear them apart and trash the entire collection. She eventually ends up with Hideko throwing as many of the books as possible into a small water pool, while stomping on them and adding ink to the water to completely destroy them.

* DirtyOldMan: Uncle Kouzuki is a sadistic, perverted old bastard who forces his wife and later niece to read erotic novels and even reenact their scenes for other rich men before he auctions off the works.

* DoubleEntendre: A non-sexual variant. At the end of Part I, Sook-hee's narration says that Hideko has been a "rotten bitch" since she was a child. On first viewing, when it seems that Hideko has betrayed Sook-hee by helping Fujiwara throw her into the madhouse, that sounds like Sook-hee is spiting her for her betrayal. However, it's actually an [[{{Irony}} ironic]] segue into a flashback showing Hideko's childhood, in which Kouzuki would call Hideko a "rotten bitch" when she would speak out of turn.

** Hideko's aunt hanged herself on the cherry tree on the estate when she could not bear to live under Kouzuki's control any further. Hideko ultimately realizes that [[NoDeadBodyPoops her body was in pristine condition]], and [[SubvertedTrope Kouzuki admits that he actually killed her when she tried to escape]].
** Hideko keeps a length of rope in her room for her own eventual suicide, to emulate her aunt. She does tie the knot and jump when the guilt over her plan to betray Sook-hee grows too much, [[SubvertedTrope but Sook-hee catches her and confesses her own plan]].
* EarnYourHappyEnding: Quite possibly the happiest ending we'll see in a Park Chan Wook film. It takes a long time and quite a bit of devious scheming but Sook-hee and Hideko leave the country together, rich from Hideko's inheritance, and Fujiwara and Kouzuki kill each other off.

* EtherealWhiteDress: Hideko often wears white, and does so when Sook-hee first meets her. Hideko is obsessed with death, haunted by her mother's death and the hanging of her aunt, and seems to be on the verge of suicide. Combined with her cold attitude, she comes across as rather ghostly.

* EmotionlessGirl: Hideko cycles through many variants throughout the film. In the first act, she seems mostly lonely and slightly crazy and occasionally appears to show some emotion, though very subdued. Then in the second act, it's revealed that her uncle raised her explicitly to be completely emotionless, and a major point of suspense is whether everything she does is a scheme and whether she really loved Sook-hee. Eventually, she is revealed in fact to be a DefrostingIceQueen who was able to feel for the first time when meeting Sook-hee. Still, she is quite skilled at hiding her feelings.
* EvilerThanThou: Fujiwara is an amoral conman and Sook-hee is a thief, and Hideko is also a schemer, but Uncle Kouzuki is the cruellest, most depraved, most powerful person in the film. Hideko [[FateWorseThanDeath would rather die than be taken to "the basement"]], and Fujiwara [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled poisons himself]]--[[TakingYouWithMe and manages to catch Kouzuki at the same time]]--once he falls into his hands.

* EyesNeverLie: Fujiwara's seduction of women revolves heavily around eye contact, and he claims that he immediately knows that he ''cannot'' seduce Hideko because of the way she looked back at him when he glanced at her. When she later makes a show of trying to seduce him he flatly refuses her since he can see that she still is not actually interested in him.

** Sook-Hee's mother, a notorious and extremely good thief, was eventually caught and hanged for her crimes. On being executed, she [[DieLaughing laughed]].
** Fujiwara criticizes Kouzuki's obsession with sex with Hideko, claiming that a gentleman would never tell him the details he wants. When Kouzuki succumbs to the mercury smoke in the room, Fujiwara then begins taking deeper and deeper breaths himself [[MyLifeFlashedBeforeMyEyes and thinks back on the time he spent with Hideko]].

* {{Fingore}}: Uncle Kouzuki cuts off the fingers on one of Fujiwara's hands with a paper cutter.
* {{Flashback}}: Some flashbacks explain how Sook-hee is a criminal who was paced in Hideko's household as part of a scam.

** When Uncle Kouzuki leaves the estate on business he tells Hideko that with him gone she has a week of freedom, but that she must always remember "the basement". "The basement" is the torture chamber where Kouzuki murdered Hideko's aunt, and which he showed her with the threat that he would bring her down there if she ever tried to escape. It is Fujiwara who winds up in the basement at the end of the film after he helped Hideko escape Kouzuki but was unable to keep her from escaping him as well.
** While making the initial pact with Hideko, Fujiwara promises to give her a fatal dose of opium that she can ingest to commit suicide if she's ever captured, showing that he plans ahead for such outcomes. In the finale, he commits suicide by using a lethal dose of mercury, which also kills Uncle Kouzuki.
** The film diverged from the source material when Sook-hee proactively helped Hideko determine the authenticity of the earrings supposedly given by Fujiwara, foretelling the alliance between the two women. In ''Literature/{{Fingersmith}}'', it has a similar scene where Maud regards Gentleman's gift to her as pretty. They're actually unremarkable but Sue keeps her opinion to herself.
** The subtle difference between the looks that Sook-hee each gave to Hideko and Fujiwara reveals the true partnership of the heist when the money finally arrives.
* GambitPileup: Sook-hee was initially on the con with Fujiwara to fool Hideko but he is actually running a scam with Hideko on Sook-hee and Kouzuki, while Sook-hee and Hideko are running their own scam on Fujiwara and Kouzuki.
* GildedCage: The estate that Hideko lives in has the most expensive mansion at the time, and Sasaki says that its style of combining Edwardian Era architecture and Japanese design is only one of its kind in Korea. However, Hideko who is not lacking for luxurious jewelry and clothing, was forbidden to leave the estate under the threat of cold blooded torture by Kouzuki in case she attempts to escape.

* GoAmongMadPeople: Fujiwara's plan is to commit Hideko to a mental institution after their wedding in order to have her money free and clear to split with Sook-hee. Flashbacks reveal that Hideko's uncle would threaten to send her to an institution when she was a child and did not fully submit to his control It is Sook-hee who is actually sent to the institution as part of Fujiwara and Hideko's joint plan, but she is freed in only a few days as part of ''her'' and Hideko's plan.

* GroinAttack: Fujiwara's LastWords are relief that he is going to die with his genitalia intact.

** Lady Hideko grew to be a cold person following the abuse she got from her uncle and being treated as expendable but is actually highly intelligent, longs for affection, constantly in search of a mother figure, and a romantic as indicated when she described Sook-hee with the beautiful and miraculous contradiction of being the person who saved her life by tearing it apart.
** Sook-hee may not be averse to sending a young woman to a mental asylum in exchange of a life free from crime but she is actually considered too caring, earnest, and motherly which prevents her from being effective in swindling Hideko, not to mention that she balks at Fujiwara's ruthlessness in deceiving everyone regardless of their familiarity to him.
** Fujiwara is ruthless and amoral though that didn't prevent him from being attracted to Hideko, admiring her intelligence and for being among the few people to see through his ruse.
** Kouzuki is a perverted scoundrel yet his constant reading of erotica regardless of literary merit has given him an understanding of what makes a good story. As he told Fujiwara, it's not about knowing and anticipating the facts but it's how the story unravels and reveals to the reader on how they got there.

* ILoveTheDead: Implied when Kouzuki lists off titles in his collection of perverted smut, which includes ''The Mortician's Bedroom''.
* ImagineSpot: When Fujiwara attended his first Hideko pornography reading, he imagined himself, Hideko and Kouzuki as the characters in the scene being read.
* ImpaledPalm: Uncle Kouzuki drills a hole into the hand of Fujiwara that did not [[{{Fingore}} have its fingers cut off]].

* InLoveWithTheMark: Sook-hee begins falling for Hideko almost immediately upon meeting her, [[LoveAtFirstSight stunned at her beauty]]. It is a mutual trope, considering that Sook-hee is the real mark of Hideko and Fujiwara's con, and Hideko falls in love with Sook-hee, too. This leads both women to confess their respective con plans to one another and making a new plan to fool Fujiwara.

* InnocenceLost: The training Hideko went through as a little girl. And then her uncle showing her what's in the basement, while explaining what he really did to the auntie and why. She was about 8.

* InterruptedIntimacy: After Fujiwara sends Sook-hee to replace the watercolour to oil paints, Sook-hee returns to see Hideko on top of Fujiwara, interrupting their moment. Part 2 shows that Hideko and Fujiwara weren’t actually doing anything, just pretending to be intimate to make Sook-hee think her con with Fujiwara is working.
* InterruptedSuicide: Hideko, riven with guilt over the plot to chuck Sook-hee into an asylum, goes to hang herself from the tree at the edge of the garden. She drops from the branch, only to be caught in mid-air by a tearful Sook-hee, who confesses her part in what she thinks is the plot to chuck Hideko into an asylum. Hideko promptly confesses the ''real'' plot and her part in it, which leads to a little BlackComedy when Sook-hee flips out in rage at Fujiwara, causing Hideko to choke on the rope for a little bit before Sook-hee remembers and helps her down.

** Fujiwara's excuse for staying at the estate is to coach Hideko in her painting. [[ExploitedTrope He uses their sessions to flatter her and talk about how much her work moves him, and arranges for them to be isolated and alone on the estate grounds]]. [[SubvertedTrope The entire escapade is intended to fool Sook-hee, and Hideko is disgusted by Fujiwara throughout their display]].

** Lady Hideko and Sook-hee’s ultimate goal is freedom but their short-term goal involves the suppression of another’s freedom.
** Sook-hee laments that Hideko is contemplating the agony of falling in love leading her to think that she’s losing her heart to a fake thinking it was for the count. Later scenes show Hideko’s perspective that her feelings for Sook-hee have deepened after the latter has comforted her over her mother’s death. Sook-hee is actually the “fake”.

* Considering that Kouzuki [[spoiler: dies at the end of the film]], it's likely that [[spoiler: Hideko]] will be his heir and inherit the house. In that case, Sasaki's days in that house are numbered.
* TheLawOfConservationOfDetail: Numerous important elements aren't exactly ''shown'' in Part One, but only implied to be there. For example, when Hideko writes Sook-hee's name on a piece of paper, we aren't shown what she actually wrote - it was "Countess Fujiwara Hideko". The letter forged by Fujiwara as a recommendation? Instructions for Hideko how to handle Sook-hee. The overheard wedding night? ADateWithRosiePalms. And so on and forth. This allows to easily twist what audiences took for granted in Part Two starts, finally disclosing the entire charade.
* LonelyDollGirl: Hideko never left the mansion of her uncle for years, substituting friends with her doll that she had since childhood. In the extended version, the doll is implied to be a confidant. She's 25 according to WordOfGod and still carries it around. This might or might not be part of the ruse, as she genuinely appears to carry it. Sook-Hee meanwhile jokingly remarks how ladies are nothing but big dolls to dress up for their maids.
* LonelyRichKid: Hideko is miserable as an heiress living on an estate, with no friends and under the control of her uncle. [[DeconstructedTrope Her true misery does not stem from being rich itself]], but from her uncle's sadistic and torturous control over her life, exploiting her for his own sexual gratification and as a prop in his pornographic industry.

** Hideko ends her narrative in part 2 by describing Sook-hee and it's subtitled in English as "The savior who came to ruin my life. My Tamako, My Sook-hee." If they were to follow Korean syntax it will be transliterated as "The person who came to ruin my life, my savior. My Tamako, My Sook-hee"; Tamako is the person who came to ruin her life, Sook-hee is her saviour.

* LoveRedeems: Sook-hee [[InLoveWithTheMark begins to fall for Hideko]] [[LoveAtFirstSight as soon as she meets her]]. She grows more and more reluctant to follow through with the plan as she sees how miserable Hideko is and how awful Fujiwara is. [[SubvertedTrope However she does not deviate from the plan and even encourages Fujiwara to move things along so that she can put the experience behind her]]. [[spoiler:[[DoubleSubverted She is actually running a separate con on Fujiwara]] [[PlayedStraight after she had confessed everything to Hideko when she saw that Hideko herself was unwilling to run on a con on her because of her feelings]].]]

* MarryingTheMark: Fujiwara realizes immediately that he could never honestly seduce Hideko, so he proposes that they fake a marriage in order to fool everybody else. After the scam is completed, he proposes that they ''actually'' get married and stay together. [[SubvertedTrope By this point Hideko has long since broken their original partnership without him realizing it, as she is in love with Sook-hee]].
* MatchCut: A match cut serves as the transition from Part I to Part II. Sook-hee being dragged away by asylum attendants at the end of the first part is matched with Hideko being restrained by a servant at the start of the second part, as we see how she was abused as a child by her monstrous uncle.

* MeaningfulEcho: Sook-hee listened wryly to Fujiwara's dubious scheme in making Lady Hideko fall in love with him and wondering how an amoral conman can know anything about love knowing that he's too selfish to make any genuine connections. Hideko dismisses Fujiwara's attempts of ingratiating himself by asking him on how can he know anything about love when he expressed no remorse in sending Sook-hee to the asylum and also arranging to have her killed.

* MoodWhiplash: The film goes from one extreme mood to another which can break the tension or emphasize the enormity of the situation that no emotion, no matter how incongruous couldn't be awakened or amplified.

** Hideko's in despair and petrified as she lets go from the tree branch but then expresses her disappointment when she finds that Sook-hee catches her fall. The scene continues to go back and forth between maudlin and darkly comedic.
** Hideko's seduction of Fujiwara starts with a sense of foreboding as though she's driven by lust as Fujiwara kisses her body, but her grimace at seeing him do it took the scene into a hilarious turn as she can barely contain her disgust while having to focus on convincing him that she's into it.

* MyLifeFlashedBeforeMyEyes: As Fujiwara is dying, he has flashes of memories of Hideko and his time with her. These flashes fade in and out along with his breathing and also begin to freeze on still images as he nears the end.

* NightmareFetishist: Kouzuki, who reads and collects increasingly perverted erotic fiction and delights in [[spoiler: forcing Hideko to read and reenact its content in front of an audience. The briefly-glimpsed contents of his dreaded basement suggest a deeper level of vileness to Kouzuki's predilections - we get to see various human body parts preserved in jars, among them a vagina. Then there's the octopus...]]

** We never learn how uncle Kouzuki was named before marrying into the Kouzuki family, nor do we learn Lady Kouzuki's first name.

* NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization: Fujiwara claims that women get the ''most'' pleasure when they are taken against their will. After Hideko has knocked him out and delivered him to Kouzuki, [[DefiedTrope in her letter she asks Kouzuki to tell him that no woman takes greater enjoyment when forced.]]
* ObviouslyEvil: Kouzuki has "EvilUncle" practically written on his forehead from the moment he shows up. We find out that he's not only a BoomerangBigot with delusions of sophistication but also a disgusting sexual deviant and murderer who killed his own wife, harbors sexual desires for [[VillainousIncest his niece]], and has his basement converted into a torture dungeon, complete with body parts in jars, that's so horrible Hideko would [[FateWorseThanDeath rather]] [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled die]] than go back there...

* TheOphelia: [[ExploitedTrope Exploited]] by Hideko in the first act, a beautiful but deeply sad and lonely young woman, usually dressed in white, who claims to see ghosts and is haunted by the death of her aunt. While Hideko is indeed haunted by her aunt's death and is undoubtedly lonely and unhappy, this didn't prevent her from [[WoundedGazelleGambit pretending to see her aunt's ghost which caused Sook-hee to be terrified of her new surroundings, thus allowing Hideko to conceal her calculating attitude and to allay any suspicion from Sook-hee.]]
* OutWithABang: One of the pornographic stories that Hideko reads--and is forced to reenact--involves a Knight being garroted just as he is having sex.
* ParentalIncest: Figuratively, at least. Hideko's parents are dead, but her guardian (her mother's brother-in-law) is planning to marry her for her fortune, and he also forces her to read from pornographic novels--and even reenact certain scenes--for other rich men.
* ParentalSubstitute: Both Sook-Hee and Hideko ended up with their respective aunts playing the role of mother. In case of Hideko it was short-lived, as she eventually hanged herself, but still showed to be protective and caring for the girl.

* TheQuisling: Kouzuki is a Korean SocialClimber who helped Japan take over Korea, and was given a gold mine in exchange.

* RedRightHand: Uncle Kouzuki's tongue has been stained black with pen ink, and he is even referred to as "black-tongued" when Fujiwara is trying to convince Hideko not to continue wasting her life under his control.
* RemovingTheRival: Sook-hee is able to get her job at Kouzuki's house in the first place because Junko, her predecessor was fired. It's later revealed that Fujiwara intentionally seduced Junko because he knew she'd be fired for having sex with a guest, leaving a vacant position for Sook-hee.

** At the end of Part 2, [[spoiler:Hideko and Sook-hee are working together to run a con on Fujiwara]].

** Hideko's costume being the kimono is itself a language of symbolism, showing the status of a woman in society, her age, and the season. [[spoiler: Her kimono during the wedding night is white and has a floral design resembling cherry blossoms, which actually isn't, concealing her true motives from Fujiwara. It's supposed to signify innocence but when Hideko cut her hand and drew blood from the knife matching the flowers on her kimono, she enphasizes her agency over her body and identity.]]
** According to Creator/ParkChanWook, doors represent social class. The person opening the door particularly lowers theirs to serve the other person. In part one, Sook-hee opens the door for Hideko. [[spoiler: Close to the end of the first act and after leaving Kouzuki's library, both open the door together. The end of part 3 shows Hideko opening the door for Sook-hee.]]

** The pornographic story read by Hideko's aunt in Part 2 was an excerpt from JinPingMei (''The Plum in the Golden Vase''), a Chinese erotic classic. [[spoiler: The ending has Sook-hee and Hideko re-enacting a scene from the book while on their journey to China.]]

* SweetPollyOliver: Hideko ends up dressed up as male, with a fake mustache and all, to avoid the goons sent by her uncle, obviously looking for two women travelling together.
* SweetheartSipping: PlayedForDrama at the climax. Hideko cannot get Fujiwara [[SlippingAMickey to drink the drugged wine]], so she sips from his glass, kisses him, and forces it into his mouth in a way that he thinks is sexual foreplay.

* TakingYouWithMe: Fujiwara waits until he is with Uncle Kouzuki in "the basement" before lighting his mercury cigarettes so that he can kill Kouzuki at the same time.
* TeenyWeenie: Apparently Fujiwara has serious problems and issues about his manhood. He constantly talks about it and sex, but Sook-Hee delivers an epic smackdown when he forces her to rub him.

* ThanatosGambit: When Fujiwara is being taken back to Kouzuki's estate, he takes out his cigarette case and lights ''three'' cigarettes at once. The remaining two cigarettes are the mercury cigarettes he has [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled to kill himself if he needs to]], and by leaving only those two in the case he knows he will get one of them if he asks for a cigarette. Fujiwara does this in order to FaceDeathWithDignity rather than be tortured to death (and lose his cock) in Kouzuki's dungeon.
* ThievesGuild: Sook-Hee and her family are forming one of those, based on blood ties. Her mother was apparently a legendary thief.

* VictoriasSecretCompartment: Sook-hee pickpockets Fujiwara when she first meets him and slips the item she steals into her cleavage. He has ''no'' problem reaching down there to get it back.
* ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend: Hideko is a muted version. In the extended cut, her fingers linger over the tilted vial as she's tempted to pour what remains of it into Fujiwara's drink after she put just enough to render him unconscious, and a few drops more would kill after she learned that he's plotting to have Sook-hee murdered in the asylum. [[AvertedTrope Ultimately, she stuck to their original plan of just sedating him.]]
%%* ViolinScam: Hideko is working with Fujiwara to convince Sook-hee that Hideko is the victim of their scheme. Sook-hee is the actual [[TheMark mark]] of the original plan. Then Sook-hee teams up with Hideko to run the con on Fujiwara, who does not know that his and Hideko's plan to con Sook-hee has been halted. %%Please add more context. What is the scam?
* WhamLine: "Good day, Countess. Do you remember me?" Said by the doctor... ''to Sook-hee''.

* WoundedGazelleGambit: Hideko is anything but the sweet, naive girl Sook-Hee initially takes her for.

** The end of Part 1 reveals that [[spoiler: Sook-hee]] is the ''real'' mark of the scam at Hideko's estate. [[spoiler: She is ''also'' a FakeMark, running a double scam with Hideko against Fujiwara after Hideko decided that she could not continue with the original plan.]]

** Hideko is the ''direct'' mark. Fujiwara will marry her in order to steal the fortune she inherited from her parents. [[spoiler: She is actually a FakeMark who was in on the plan the entire time, targeting Sook-hee]].

* FakeMark:
** Hideko, who is working with Fujiwara to convince Sook-hee that Hideko is the victim of their scheme. Sook-hee is the actual [[TheMark mark]] of the original plan.
** Sook-hee, who teams up with Hideko to run the con on Fujiwara, who does not know that his and Hideko's plan to con Sook-hee has been halted.

* YourHeartsDesire: A recurring theme is the thought of what a person would be willing to give up in order to be with the one they love (Or at least lust).

* ShelteredAristocrat: How much sheltered Hideko is? She ''never'' left the mansion grounds in her life ever since her arrival.

* {{Adorkable}}: Sook-hee is a delightful mix of earnestness and awkwardness starting from bumping her head on her bunk as she immediately responds to Lady Hideko's cry for help, and her impulse to laugh at stressful situations such as to ease the tension when Hideko asked her about her mom's death.

''The Handmaiden'' is a 2016 film directed by Creator/ParkChanWook. Based on Sarah Waters' novel ''Literature/{{Fingersmith}}'', the Victorian-era British story is transferred to Korea in the 1930s, [[UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan when the country had been occupied by Japan and its people systematically oppressed and their culture forbidden]].

** Uncle Kouzuki and Fujiwara. They're both self-assured, greedy, lustful men who are obsessed with Hideko and pretend to be something they are not, and they are both killed by somebody whom they underestimated. Both of them die as a result of their sexual fascination with Hideko (Fujiwara lets his guard down and is drugged by her, while Uncle Kouzuki is so eager to hear the details of Hideko's wedding night that he doesn't notice the strange blue smoke filling the basement). However, while Uncle Kouzuki never changes for the better, Fujiwara comes to develop a deep respect for Hideko's strength of character, and dies after taking out his captor and Hideko's tormentor.

* AdaptationalSexuality: In ''Literature/{{Fingersmith}}'' Gentleman was gay, and his interest in Maud was entirely monetary. Fujiwara has an overwhelming desire for Hideko.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Maud's uncle was no saint, but he never participated in ColdBloodedTorture as Kouzuki does, nor openly labor an incestuous desire for his niece.

* AnimalMotifs: Hideko's appearance and behavior is meant to be reminiscent of a white longhair cat.

* RedRightHand: Uncle Kouzuki's tongue has been stained black, and he is even referred to as "black-tongued" when Fujiwara is trying to convince Hideko not to continue wasting her life under his control.

** The pornographic story read by Hideko's aunt in Part 2 was an excerpt from JinPingMei (The Plum in the Golden Vase), a Chinese erotic classic. [[spoiler: The ending has Sook-hee and Hideko re-enacting a scene from the book while on their journey to China.]]

* MarriageOfConvenience: Fujiwara realizes immediately that he could never honestly seduce Hideko, so he proposes that they fake a marriage in order to fool everybody else. After the scam is completed, he proposes that they ''actually'' get married and stay together. [[SubvertedTrope By this point Hideko has long since broken their original partnership without him realizing it, as she is in love with Sook-hee]].

* WomanInWhite: Hideko often dresses in white, particularly in the first act. In particular, she wears a white kimono while reading for her uncle and a white dress in many scenes with Sook-hee. The white symbolizes her mysteriousness and possible insanity. Hideko is a ghost of a person, growing up in an emotionally repressive, isolated, and death-filled environment. The white also evokes her innocence which is of course zig-zagged all over the place in the course of the film.

* ZipMeUp: The lesbian sexual tension is ramped UpToEleven in an early scene where Sook-hee and Hideko are zipping each other into and out of corsets.

* ChastityDagger: [[spoiler: Hideko used one on Fujiwara during their wedding night, making it clear that he's not even allowed to touch her. She cuts her hand with it and smear the blood over the bedsheet to feint loss of her virginity]].

* InnocentFanserviceGirl: Hideko is by her own admission still barely a child and acts extremely innocent, completely unaware how much she's teasing Sook-Hee in the process. If only Sook-Hee knew what kind of books Hideko is reading for her uncle...

** Sook-hee’s naïveté compared to Lady Hideko’s suspiciousness.

-->'''Sook-Hee''': It's suffocating. How do ladies wear such things?
-->'''Hideko''': You think this is suffocating?
-->(GilliganCut to Hideko lacing the corset tighter with a foot on Sook-Hee back, while she can't catch her breath)

* ForeignCultureFetish: Not only Uncle Kouzuki despise being Korean, but he also has a serious thing for Japanese ''and'' English culture, going so far as ordering himself a bizarre mansion, being half-Edwardian design, half traditional Japanese.
-->'''Sasaki''':It reflects Master's admiration for Japan and England.

[[caption-width-right:259:''"If she could be yours for ten minutes, what would you give in exchange?"[[note]]"Whatever your heart desires. Anything in this whole wide world."[[/note]]]]''

[[caption-width-right:259:If she could be yours for ten minutes, what would you give in exchange?[[note]]Whatever your heart desires. Anything in this whole wide world.[[/note]]]]

* ConspicuousCG: The ship deck is very obviously a set with a green screen.

* SpoiledSweet: Hideko, [[DownplayedTrope despite being cold]], gives Sook-hee a pair of her own shoes when she sees that some of the other maids have stolen her slippers as a practical joke, and allows Sook-hee to dress up in her clothing and jewelry. [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope She is actually in on the con with Fujiwara and is exposing Sook-hee to her wealth so Sook-hee will be distracted by the potential money and not get wise to the real plan.]] [[DoubleSubverted However, as the con progresses she finds that she really cannot go through with condemning her to an insane asylum]].]]

* NightmareFetishist: Kouzuki, who reads and collects increasingly perverted erotic fiction and delights in [[spoiler: forcing Hideko to read and reenact its content in front of an audience. The briefly-glimpsed contents of his dreaded basement suggest a deeper level of vileness to Kouzuki's predilections - we get to see various human body parts preserved in jars, among them a vagina. Then there's [[EverythingsSquishierWithCephalopods the octopus]]...]]