Review of The Housemaid / 하녀, directed Im Sang-soo

One of the first movies we had to watch in my undergraduate Korean film class was The Housemaid. But not the Im Sang-soo version: we were first asked to screen the Kim Ki-young version from 1960, as that really is one of the very first modern Korean movies.

The 1960 version of The Housemaid serves as a reference point for a lot of movies that are being made today in Korean cinema. I remember reading once that Bong Joon-ho used that film as an inspiration for Parasite, and if you’ve seen both, trust me, you can see it.

Our second assignment though was to watch the 2010 version of the movie and trace how censorship and whatnot has changed throughout the years in Korean cinema. What Kim could not do in 1960 is what Im did in 2010—he took contemporary attitudes and rage and transplanted it into a remake of the film.

Anyways, I could ramble a lot more in this introduction, but let’s get into the review!

A woman is brought into a rich family’s home with a maid, but with devastating consequences.

We begin this movie with a suicide. A young woman jumps from a building ledge onto a busy street in a city, leaving behind devastation for those who witness the scene. We meet our protagonist, Eun-yi, soon after that.

She’s working at a restaurant, and convinces her co-worker/roommate to take her to the scene of the suicide. Eun-yi stands over the chalk outline where the woman’s body once was. The very next day, an old woman visits Eun-yi at her apartment and tells her that she has a job for her.

Eun-yi is brought into a rich family’s home as an au pair for a girl named Nami. The mother, Hae-ra, is pregnant with twins, and her husband Hoon is the one with all of the money. Eun-yi eventually gets Nami to open up to her, but her father, Hoon, is trying to get in bed with Eun-yi.

He tries to entice her with piano playing and wine, and his wife has no idea this is happening. Eventually, Eun-yi gives him and starts having sex with him. At the same time, Eun-yi doesn’t let anything slip to Hae-ra, and even acts like a friend of sorts to her.

However, the old woman from before spots Eun-yi and Hoon doing their thing. She tries to question Eun-yi about it, but doesn’t get anything out of her. She then goes to Hae-ra’s mother, and tells her that she thinks Eun-yi is pregnant with Hoon’s child.

The mother, Mi-hee, then visits the family. While Eun-yi is at the top of a ladder, she then kicks it accidentally, forcing Eun-yi to fall to the ground. She grabs onto a chandelier, and asks Mi-hee to save her, but she instead does nothing and lets Eun-yi fall.

She only gets a concussion though, and decides to potentially get an abortion. Hae-ra then finds out about the affair, and Mi-hee tells Hae-ra to ignore everything about this. She claims wealthy men all cheat and Hae-ra can get whatever she wants if she puts up with it.

Hae-ra almost bashes Eun-yi while she’s sleeping, but decides to instead bribe her to leave the home and get an abortion. She also realizes Eun-yi won’t give in, so she poisons Eun-yi’s medicinal packets. She then gives birth, and lets Hoon know that she is indeed pretty angry with him.

Hoon goes home and learns of Eun-yi’s pregnancy. When the poison takes hold, Mi-hee arranges an abortion while she is unconscious. The old woman reveals to Eun-yi when she wakes up that she was the snitch, and Eun-yi swears on getting revenge.

The old woman helps her get into the home, and Hoon discovers Eun-yi breast feeding one of their newborns. Hae-ra demands the old woman chase Eun-yi out, but she refuses and quits her job right then and there. Eun-yi then angrily berates the family and hangs herself violently on their chandelier, lighting herself on fire as the family watches.

The Housemaid then ends with the family celebrating Nami’s birthday. Hae-ra and Hoon have gone mad, while Nami watches as her parents act this way.

Overall Thoughts

I will watch anything Jeon Do-yeon is in, as I know she is in some of my favorite movies as of late. Kill Boksoon? That was straight up my alley.

Anyways, this certainly was an interesting adaptation of The Housemaid. Certainly it was updated for modern tastes, and I found it very much an indicator of the cinema that was coming out of Korea through the early 2010s. Lots of violence and crude imagery.

I would say I liked the original better—sometimes, the original isn’t something that needs to be touched. I could see though how someone who has only seen this version could like it. The original is more subtle though to me, and I like that fact a lot more.

Go see this one if it interests you and you haven’t seen it already!

Follow me below on Instagram and Goodreads for more.