--- title: "The Handmaiden: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-handmaiden/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/the-handmaiden" critics_score: 83 critics_reviews: 21 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Handmaiden (2016): what the critics said Critics' score 83 from 21 reviews: 20 positive, 1 mixed, 0 negative. Most critics greet The Handmaiden with strong enthusiasm, praising Park Chan-wook’s intricate storytelling and the feeling that survives all its deceptions. Praise clusters around the lead performances and their sexual chemistry, with many reviews finding a persuasive romance beneath the elaborate thriller. The photography, costumes and interiors draw repeated approval for making the film’s decadence tangible. Critics also value its dark humour and the way its changes of perspective keep the plotting surprising yet coherent. Reservations centre on what the erotic imagery means for the women it depicts. Variety offers the clearest dissent, arguing that eroticised cruelty and misogyny submerge the theme of female rebellion; Sight and Sound also questions whether the leads are objectified. Time Out raises pacing issues and mixed messages despite admiring the love story and visuals. The spread is chiefly between qualified approval and outright enthusiasm, but the disagreement over the film’s sexual politics is substantial. ## The i Paper — Matthew Turner Rating ★★★★★. 13 April 2017. Park Chan-wook’s ingenious adaptation of Fingersmith is unmissable, a lushly photographed, dizzyingly erotic thriller full of delicious twists. The critic singles out the palpable sexual chemistry between the leads and the extraordinarily beautiful cinematography. [Read the review](https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/the-handmaiden-review-58866) ## Empire — Andrew Lowry Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 3 April 2017. Park Chan-wook has followed up Stoker with what might be his best film, a superlative thriller and deeply erotic character study. The critic singles out the intelligence, mordant wit and depth of characterisation as the real turn-ons. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/handmaiden-review/) ## Evening Standard — Matthew Norman Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 21 November 2017. This is a masterwork more than the sum of its dazzling parts, confirming the awesome redemptive power of love. The critic singles out the intricate details and twists that make it impossible to pigeonhole and tempt a second viewing. [Read the review](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/the-handmaiden-film-review-part-melodrama-part-erotica-full-masterpiece-a3680581.html) ## The AV Club — A.A. Dowd Rating A-. 20 October 2016. The fiendishly clever con-job melodrama keeps yanking the rug out from under everyone, yet it is also the year’s most genuinely romantic movie. The director’s gonzo adaptation locates moving human feeling and a feminist edge amid the twists and explicit set pieces. [Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/oldboy-director-park-chan-wook-gets-romantic-really-1798189269) ## Vulture Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 28 October 2016. Park delivers a lush, romantic, crowd-pleasing melodrama that channels his perversity with discipline and style. The year’s most irresistible romance emerges from the women’s sparks and the film’s formal constraints, turning oppression into wellsprings of love. [Read the review](https://www.vulture.com/2016/10/handmaiden-review-park-chan-wook-twisted-romance.html) ## The New Yorker — Anthony Lane Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 20 October 2016. Park's film is his most delectable to date, an illicitly suave puzzle that takes pleasure in fooling with the characters' intricate plans and the audience's minds. It is drenched in longing and desire through role reversals and the leads' performances. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-handmaiden) ## IndieWire — Eric Kohn Rating B+. 15 May 2016. Festival review. Park unfurls an ambitious three-part noir of violent beatings, sexual deviance and cathartic feminist revenge, though his exuberance sometimes masks sharper observations. It remains a hugely enjoyable dose of grotesque escapism from a master of the form. [Read the review](https://www.indiewire.com/2016/05/cannes-review-the-handmaiden-is-a-sexy-and-depraved-lesbian-revenge-story-from-park-chan-wook-290562/) ## Little White Lies — Abbey Bender Rating 4/4/4. 11 April 2017. The review highlights the film's satisfying layers of con-artist twists and well-structured acts punctuated by eroticism as key strengths. It commends the sumptuous visuals blended with perverse humour, calling it one of Park's boldest works. [Read the review](https://lwlies.com/reviews/the-handmaiden) ## Los Angeles Times — Justin Chang Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 20 October 2016. The review calls it an unexpected delight and the director’s most absorbing feature in years, a witty and elegant puzzle-box thriller whose pleasures are rooted in narrative surprise. It seduces with the women's fight for physical, sexual and national freedom rather than visceral shock. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-handmaiden-review-20161017-snap-story.html) ## Time Out — Tom Huddleston Rating 4/5. 16 October 2016. Festival review. The critic describes the film as a beautiful, disturbing adaptation that luxuriates in decadence as both subject and style, with masterful visuals and a resonant love story. He notes some pacing issues and mixed messages but finds it smart, sumptuous and indulgent overall. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-handmaiden) ## Slant Magazine — Chuck Bowen Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 12 October 2016. Park achieves a profound leap as an artist with seductive mood, intimate emotional obsession and masterful craftsmanship in a period gothic. He retreats to lurid cartoonishness just as he has earned the viewer’s trust after the film’s most amazing sequence. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-handmaiden/) ## Total Film Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 14 May 2016. Festival review. Park Chan-wook’s competition entry is a seductively shot erotic thriller that locates a genuine erotic charge between its two female leads. The critic singles out the visual elegance and fetishization of props, costumes and storytelling. [Read the review](https://www.gamesradar.com/the-handmaiden-reaction-cannes-2016/) ## Variety — Maggie Lee Fi1m's normalised score 60/100 (inferred from the text). 14 May 2016. Festival review. Park's adaptation is clever, heady and sensually lavish but slides back into his febrile universe of eroticized torture and misogyny, submerging the theme of female rebellion. Production values are sensational even by Korean cinema’s standards. [Read the review](https://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/the-handmaiden-review-1201774313/) ## Screen Daily 14 May 2016. Festival review. The review finds the transposition of Fingersmith to Japanese-occupied Korea a strong fit, with persuasive new milieu, playful humour, photogenic sex and baroque cruelty. It notes some simplification of the novel's complexity but praises its commercial potential. [Read the review](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-handmaiden-cannes-review/5103898.article) ## Sight and Sound — Jonathan Romney 12 April 2017. The critic praises Park Chan-wook's hyper-elaborate adaptation of Fingersmith for its intricate, mutable narrative and spectacular gothic mansion setting that mirrors the story's shifting deceptions. He notes the film's visual and thematic ambition but questions whether its erotic elements objectify the female leads. [Read the review](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/film-week-handmaiden-park-chan-wooks-intricate-erotic-intrigue) ## The Guardian — Peter Bradshaw 13 April 2017. Park Chan-wook’s adaptation of Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith, relocated to 1930s Korea, is an erotic triumph with a whiplash twist. The critic singles out the explosive attraction and outstanding performances between the two lead actresses for praise. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/apr/13/the-handmaiden-review-park-chan-wook) ## The Hollywood Reporter — Deborah Young 14 May 2016. Festival review. Park Chan-wook’s kinky erotic thriller and love story brims with delicious surprises and exquisite filming, making its long runtime fly by. The playful reworking of the source novel into a multi-perspective narrative set in 1930s colonial Korea delivers irony and catharsis. [Read the review](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/handmaiden-agassi-cannes-review-894027/) ## The New York Times — Manohla Dargis Rating NYT Critic’s Pick. 20 October 2016. The critic praises the film's refined eroticism and visual textures in a slippery con story set in 1930s Korea. Park Chan-wook's attention to voluptuous detail turns each scene into an invitation to the senses while delivering narrative sleights of hand. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/movies/the-handmaiden-review.html) ## Den of Geek — Ryan Lambie Rating 5/5. 13 April 2017. The critic praises the film as a magnificent, even flawless piece of cinema and a pointed parable about the repression of female sexuality. They single out its surprising yet logical twists, elegant direction, sumptuous score, and superb acting, especially from Kim Tae-ri and Kim Min-hee. [Read the review](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-handmaiden-review-2/) ## Consequence Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 26 October 2016. Park Chan-wook's most accomplished film to date is a perverse yet exhilarating thriller with flawless direction blending humor, grotesquerie, and romance. The intricate, multi-layered storytelling and opulent style make it a singular cinematic experience. [Read the review](https://consequence.net/2016/10/film-review-the-handmaiden/) ## /Film — Jacob Hall Rating 9.0/10. 25 September 2016. Festival review. The critic hails it as a sexy, stylish, and hilariously perverse psychological thriller with masterful direction, great performances from the leads, and a fun, twisted narrative about lies, desire, and sex that goes down easy. [Read the review](https://www.slashfilm.com/546727/the-handmaiden-review/) ## The Ringer — K. Austin Collins Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 24 October 2016. The Handmaiden exemplifies Park's mastery through its purposeful aesthetic care in an overwrought sexual melodrama about cons, fortunes, and unexpected romance. The explicit sex scenes are staged with microscopic attention to bodies and self-discovery. [Read the review](https://www.theringer.com/2016/10/24/uncategorized/park-chan-wook-handmaiden-review-4689949cd320) ## Collider — Matt Goldberg Rating B+. 19 October 2016. The film is a masterful, entertaining erotic thriller with dark twists that challenges expectations while remaining immensely engaging. The critic praises its complex storytelling and performances but notes some uneven subtext in the sex scenes. [Read the review](https://collider.com/the-handmaiden-review-park-chan-wook/) ## The Playlist — Jessica Kiang Rating B+. 17 October 2016. The critic calls it a deliriously fun, terminally silly Gothic melodrama with lavishly sumptuous craft and gloss that makes the twisty potboiler pleasurable, celebrating female triumph and lesbian desire while fetishizing period details. [Read the review](https://theplaylist.net/park-chan-wooks-handmaiden-deliriously-fun-terminally-silly-review-20161017/) ## The Skinny — Josh Slater-Williams Rating ★★★★. 10 October 2016. Festival review. The critic calls it a career high for Park, with assured control of tone, pitch-black humour, and maximalist style, describing it as a darkly comic study in sex, class and Japanese-Korean relations. They single out its carnal heart and candid exploration of the full spectrum of sex. [Read the review](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/festivals/uk-festivals/film/the-handmaiden-park-chan-wook) ## The Wrap — Robert Abele Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 20 October 2016. The critic praises the film's sumptuous, erotic crime story with a rapturously conceived plot involving sex, secrets, and spite. They single out the exuberant performances, especially Kim Min-hee's, and Park's playful genre provocation. [Read the review](https://www.thewrap.com/the-handmaiden-review/) ## HeyUGuys — Jo-Ann Titmarsh 14 May 2016. Festival review. The critic praises the elegant, luscious world Park creates in this transposition of Fingersmith, highlighting the film's humor, highly-charged sex scenes, beautiful lead performances, and how the women triumph over male domination. [Read the review](https://www.heyuguys.com/the-handmaiden-review/) ## Paste — Andy Crump Rating 9.2. 19 October 2016. Park Chan-wook refines his signature style into an exquisite psychological erotic thriller that maintains plot momentum and fun over 145 minutes. The sex scenes are highlighted for their tenderness and romance rather than mere titillation. [Read the review](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/the-handmaiden/the-handmaiden) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/the-handmaiden.md