The Handmaiden adapts Sarah Waters's Fingersmith, which supplies the plot. What it takes from Kurosawa is the way the plot is delivered: the same events told three times by people with incompatible interests, each retelling exposing what the previous one flattered or concealed. Park uses it for a different end. Rashomon's versions cannot be reconciled and the film leaves the truth unavailable; Park's third pass resolves cleanly and the structure becomes a con played on the audience rather than a statement about knowledge.