NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

calvinnme ... and this one truly did besides being as intense a psychological study as Joseph Losey's "The Servant". I am generally unscareable and though I appreciate the talent in films like "The Exorcist" which can frighten others, for me it always falls flat as I must have been born repeating the advertising line from "Last House on the Left" stating "Remember...it is only a movie, it is only a movie." So the fact that this was both fascinating as a character study and scary enough to make one bejeeberless was impressive.I actually jumped in my seat at one point in "The Housemaid" and will never look at packages of rat poison the same or even filled glasses of water or some simple rice in a bowl. This psychological masterpiece can cause heart palpitations and I can't even imagine it could be improved in a remake. I kept thinking that the "housemaid" and her unfathomable facial expressions were reminiscent of the maid to Francisco Rabal in Bunuel's "Viridiana" and it was fun to hear the post film comments saying Ki-Young was sometimes compared to Luis.All in all, I'm so glad I stayed up and watched it in the middle of the night. Sure I could have watched it at a different time, but there's something right about watching a film like that in total darkness and my only complaint regarded the end, but I won't quibble since I also dig films like "The Woman in the Window".

jukangliwayway Well what I didn't expect was that this seemingly average film with all it's simple elements or limitations has managed to turn it into something complex and with thrilling unpredictability. I was shocked - to actually see this masterpiece hiding in obscurity, and enjoy it immensely. Everything about it screams classic, and yet it's techniques are even better than most modern movies. The director is a genius. The story itself, instead of sticking to the formula of its genre, has written a convoluted story of human morality, obsessive love, betrayal in such a way that you really can't predict what will happen; and made it so thrilling that you find yourself on the edge of your seat, waiting for the scene to unfold. What also made this film more interesting is that the villain is a female sexual predator with a seemingly unstable personality - which defies how Korean women at that time should act in society. This antagonist gets what she wants and she took control and made everyone around her submissive to her wishes. I wouldn't expound on the plot/story anymore. You just have to watch it.The acting is great. One of the best from any cast I've seen. Even the children were so damn effective (esp the boy). The housemaid, hands down, is the star of this movie. She is so freaky and terrifying, but still managed to evoke my sympathy. The couple did great too. Each one of them are worthy of praise because if handled sloppily, their characters will lose something. Whether they'll lose the sympathy from the audience, or credibility. Superior acting. (I've read that the actress who played the housemaid has been so effective that women hated her so much that movie producers were hesitant to cast her in other projects. Her career went to a screeching halt. Pity.)My favorite aspect of this movie is its camera works. Wow. I really love it. It reminded me of Hitchcock, with its playful camera angles, & uncommon camera movements, zooming in and out from one room to another in a fluid technique. Every shot has a purpose, even the littlest, seemingly random things in the house helped in adding to the sinister feel of the movie. Add in the piano sounds properly injected in scenes, the result is an ominous, creepy mood all throughout. The editing is very clean and seamless. I really like that fade out-fade in transition of scenes. Unlike the movies nowadays with their lazy editing.This film has been restored and the result was great with sharp black & white photography, and even with those scenes that are patchy/blurry, the product is magnificent. The lighting is great. Again, this is a superior movie, can't stress that enough. :)The Verdict:This is a great film. So simple and yet so complicated. It teaches you that love should be taken seriously and treated responsibly, and that one mistake, whether it's intentional or not, could turn your world upside down. A brilliant, timeless masterpiece that must have been controversial during its time, and still relevant in this modern age.

chaos-rampant I haven't seen before melodrama as stunning, shocking, utterly ridiculous and in full knowledge of it, Korea's cautionary tale answer on marital infidelity to Reefer Madness if it weren't at the same time as cinematically vibrant and obstinate as the best works of Sam Fuller, driven by suspenseful will and heavy with undertones of something at once sinister and horrifying to make you think parts of it were destined at some point for Les Diaboliques or Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, as Ki-young Kim's The Housemaid; for all intents and purposes, this is melodrama a-go-go, not in the cosmopolitan sense of the term, but ironic and campy, a dazzling movie steeped in artifice and insanely interesting human behaviour that sets out to provoke and push common sense to a limit.A well to do couple hires a maid to help out the wife with the chores around the house, but no sooner has she gone into the kitchen to get a glass of water than the entire household threatens to collapse in ruins of rat poison and unwanted pregnancies, illicit thrysts and alliances striken casually and alternatively between the wife and the maid who is now a mistress, the wife and the husband against the maid who they need to be rid off before she talks of the affair, the maid and the husband against each other and their own selves.The other movie I've seen by Ki-young Kim is, Iodo, a Korean version of The Wicker Man that takes place in a remote island populated exclusively by fisherwomen. It was also utterly bonkers, the most outrageous plotting this side of Italian exploitation, but it lacked the ability to see that in itself, to recognize the madness and defy it. The Housemaid at first seems like the product of Ed Wood incompetence. Some of the dialogue and character behavior had me in stitches. But it soon reveals that to be a facade which the movie can lift and put back in place at whim, so that it can be all things to all people not because of any particular notion of ambiguity shared by Ki-young Kim because the movie is blunt like a hammer in the face, but because it doesn't abide by any notion of common sense or realism unless it wants to. The movie behaves with the same audacity of its maid protagonist. It sets up an image of a socially upwards mobile household where a couple can afford to buy a television even if it means hours of slaving away on a sewing machine to get it, and then affronts it violently, perversely toys with it and corrupts it to the heart.In the end, if any more clue was required, we get fourth walls broken and a man winking straight at us. This is Panic Theater at its best, with the selfaware avant-garde tropes replaced by unselfconscious soap opera clichés.

kam-wing pang When I first watched this I thought 'what is this film'? I mean, all the characters are over the top, the emotions were so unreal, the situations so stupid (and often hilarious when it was intended to be to serious) that I didn't know what to feel. I was in serious doubt that this film could have been a Korean classic! Then the last 5 minutes changed everything you felt about the film and it all made sense! The film is indeed a classic and worth watching!It's about a man and how one mistake in his life caused so much death and sadness in his family. It goes through various surreal situations which made me laugh. There seemed to be some frustration that I felt since the actors were like in a comic book yet portrayed a serious topic which shouldn't have been funny at all, yet you laugh anyway...