While doomscrolling short videos, I got recommended The Handmaiden — a full-on lesbian film that’s won a shitload of awards and has sky-high ratings. I got curious and watched the whole thing in one sitting.

Set in Japanese colonial Korea, it stars the stunning Kim Min-hee and Kim Tae-ri, with Ha Jung-woo and Cho Jin-woong. From the very beginning, the story felt wildly bold, even straight-up perverted and depraved.

The movie is loaded with raw, filthy scenes — intense lesbian fucking, lots of naked bodies, rough violence, dirty swearing, drugs, and even a finger-chopping moment. There’s that octopus porn actress, slippery snake metaphors for cocks, lingering close-ups of sex toys sliding in and out, and some incredibly blunt, nasty erotic dialogue that hits you right in the gut. Yet none of it feels cheap or sleazy. Instead, the breathtaking cinematography, lighting, costumes, production design, and sound turn all that raw lust and perversion into something almost artistic — pure, intoxicating visual eroticism at its peak.