Just what I expected

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

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!

... 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".

A very intense psychological thriller, which could have received a higher rating from me, if not some of its drawbacks that somewhat belittle the overall impression. And the main of them is complete, at times even laughable silliness of the family members. E.g., why didn't the papa or the mama throw away that f***ing bottle of rat-poison, even after the death of their son? Were they so sure that their housemaid wouldn't use it again? What can I say, the father's actions in the second half were awfully and unbelievably idiotic, even if that gutlessness was undoubtedly intended by the director.Having said that, I must repeat that it's a very good film that has some excellent cinematography plus even the children characters are quite amusing and natural, especially their sonny.

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