The Handmaiden

1930s Korea, in the period of Japanese occupation, a new girl, Sook-hee, is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, Hideko, who lives a secluded life on a large countryside estate with her domineering Uncle Kouzuki. But the maid has a secret. She is a pickpocket recruited by a swindler posing as a Japanese Count to help him seduce the Lady to steal her fortune.

Park Chan-wook's adaptation of Sarah Waters' Fingersmith is widely celebrated as a masterpiece of contemporary cinema — a lush, intricately constructed thriller that keeps critics reaching for superlatives. The one genuine fault line is the film's explicit sex scenes between its two leads: some critics found them voyeuristically male-gaze, while others read Park's staging as deliberate and self-aware, the women performing for each other rather than simply for the camera.