The Handmaiden ending explained

What happens

Hideko and Sook-hee reunite, cheat the Count themselves, and leave him to die in Kouzuki's basement, where Kouzuki dies too. They destroy the books, then sail to Shanghai. The women's partnership, not the con, was the film's real story.

The last image

The two women aboard the ship, free and together, heading away from the house and the men who owned their stories.

What it says

The film is about who controls a story. The men's story ends in the basement, in brutality. The women's turns playful at sea. Burning the books is the point: deception, once a weapon used against them, becomes the way they win their freedom.