Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Not to be confused with the Vietnamese 2016 film of the same name, this South Korean film was included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, the title made it obvious what it was about, but I didn't know about the concept or plot, I just watched and found out for myself. Basically set in the 1960s, music teacher and composer Dong-sik Kim (Jin Kyu Kim) reads a story to his wife Mrs. Kim (Jeung-nyeo Ju) about a man falling in love with his maid. The story then jumps to the composer working in a factory; he, his wife and their children have just moved into a two-story house. His wife is pregnant and becomes exhausted from working at a sewing machine to support the family. So, the composer hires a housemaid named Myung-sook (Eun-shim Lee) to help with the work around the house. The new housemaid behaves strangely, catching rats with her hands, spying on the composer and trying to seduce him, eventually she lures him and becomes pregnant with his child. The composer's wife discovers his infidelity and convinces the housemaid to induce a miscarriage by falling down a flight of stairs. After this incident, the housemaid's behaviour becomes more erratic, including threatening the life of the composer's newborn son. The housemaid tricks the composer's son Chang-soon (Sung-Ki Ahn) into believing that he has ingested poisoned water, and in a panic, he falls to his death down a flight of stairs. Myung-sook persuades the composer to commit suicide with her by swallowing rat poison. The film ends at the point it started, with the composer reading the newspaper to his wife, so the narrative has apparently been told by the composer, he smiles and warns the film audience that this sort of thing that could happen to anyone. Also starring Aeng-ran Eom as Kyung-hee Cho and Yoo-ri Lee as Ae-soon Kim. This black-and-white film has been described as a "domestic horror", it is a very simple story of a woman hired to do the house chores, ends up having an affair with the man of the house, and becomes a deadly femme fetale, but it has suspense and disturbing bits that keep you guessing where it will go, an interesting thriller. Good!

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.

So this maid totally blackmails this man into sleeping with her, kills one of his children, and then incarcerates him and his wife in their own house, right? The moral of the story: apparently, the wife should have never wanted to own her own house, and all men when they grow older are pigs. YUP. Beautiful.Ki-young Kim's modern parable starts in with the social commentary right from the get-go, but after a while devolves into a nonsense horror movie where a completely insane woman holds an entire family hostage with their guilt and fear. None of the family members at any point have the guts to stand up for themselves, so for almost about two hours you get to see a murderer, narcissist, and blackmailer hold sway over weak people with no cajones with poison and threats of the police, while she kills off the family one-by-one.Not to say that the family is completely devoid of their own responsibility, but half the problem is that they won't just chop off her head with a shovel like the snake that she is. There's only so far I buy the "Oh noes, we'll lose our jobs and people won't respect us" after the body count begins. The main problem is that it's incredibly hard to have sympathy for these people. Pretty much nobody acts in any way to improve their situation, and all of them become subject to this woman's desires for happiness that are just impossibly met. It sucks worse because the movie takes place over a relatively long period of time, and you'd think these people'd think it through a bit. But instead it's all moping and shrinking while the maid just goes gradually insane.Not a very enjoyable movie. Shameless moralizing that is not backed up by the motivations OF the characters. Way too little common sense IN the characters. What interest you can get out of the film-making and the cinematography will be forgotten quickly in the painfulness of the plot. Best just to steer clear.--PolarisDiB

Sometimes, it's too easy to give abnormally high ratings to films may not necessarily deserve the honor. The good news is that Hanyo (The Housemaid) is the real thing - the kind of rarity that fills the viewer with such astonishment that you talk about it years later. Kim Ki-young's 1960 masterpiece must be seen at the first possible opportunity -- if you have the luck. This black and white morality tale is pure black comedy, the almost-campy tale of a respectable music teacher whose life is soon complicated with a passion for one of his students. The tone is not unlike a deliciously lurid pre-Code drama about the withering power of vice, but The Housemaid almost takes pleasure at showing the incremental erosion of morality and the corrosiveness of sin. The strange subtitles, some handwritten, only add to the atmosphere. And if you're blown away by the deadpan comedy, prepare yourself for an ending that will leave you slack-jawed for days. The movie's a miracle.Hanyo's construction is inventive and completely unpredictable - a fascinating case-study on Confucian ethics. It's so good that Martin Scorsese and other sponsors funded a complete restoration of the old print, which includes painstakingly subtitle tracks. They did an outstanding job restoring a problematic print that was at the same time extremely rare.You should be able to catch a free streaming video that's fully authorized. (http://www.theauteurs.com/films/2039)Or better yet, the DVD has just been released, and contains additional material about its restoration