The Housemaid [DVD] [2011]

I'll try to review this without spoilers. packaging, condition, delivery whole transaction hassle free. I quite like subtitles - I find they focus attention. Although I have to admit I often wonder how accurately they convey the moment. It's only my opinion but I generally find that Cinema outside the USA and UK has a different feel. A more examining attitude. Even their 'frothy' light-hearted offerings have a less glitzy and more 'judge me' feel. This was not light hearted. It's a blunt view on a slice of life. Contemporarily set its the story set over about a year. the lead lady is a young woman living her mum and their daily grind of working at fast food stall. A significant event is witnessed and the young girl wanting more from life - or at least a different life - goes to work as a maid for VERY wealthy family. Here we are introduced to the Father, a successful business man who has everything. There is the beautiful, heavily pregnant wife, and the adorable, hones, although not spoilt child, the aged lady who runs the house the house and has been with them forever, and finally there is the wife's mother. what follows is a fairly good examination of human motives and failings. I liked this. I also thought I knew from early on where it was al going but I was wrong, I did however realise how it would end, but the intriguing thing was how was it going to get to that point? I also like the fact that every one is not all good or bad - the days of the white hats and the black hats seem so old as to make me question if they ever really existed. I also liked one part where one of the characters spoke and behaved in a manner so as to make me re-assess where the story was going BUT only at the end did I realise that they were not being altruistic but merely self absorbed. Having said that I like not all good not all bad I do not like it when directors or story tellers tell us contradictory plot points and do not give upthe background as to why. If they don't then it just makes the story pointless. An example would be a who dunnit where the big reveal is not one of the cast of characters/suspects you've been analysing for 2 hrs but a random killer never before alluded to. I found a bit of this with the aged governess. I really wanted to know more about why she was as conflicted as she was. Trying no to be patronising with this, and I realise that I'm no position to preach, because I perhaps don't know enough about eastern cultures to know that the Aged Governess acted perfectly in keeping with what would be expected, but (now for the patronising bit) I suspect that to get the most out of this film you have to have some inkling of the eastern culture and how very different from the western culture it is (or at least was) especially in terms of honour and respect. Perhaps we had it here once but then again I'm not so sure the past we are shown ever really existed like it was supposed to. Perhaps it was very like now but with different clothes, different speech, less labour saving devices and less awareness of the broader world. To sum up I thought all the character were good - I found them all well done. I particularly like the lead characters mum. I thought she was perfectly captured - the world weariness and wariness was right but not clichéd or over done. PERHAPS A BIT OF SPOILER HERE - what I say now will not tell you exactly what happened but might give you hint but I feel I must say it as it gives another reason to watch this film. The ending left me very thoughtful, sad, angry and reassured. Quite brew. to expand a little - not too much - It made me think about society, I felt for 3 and a half of the characters ( can you guess which ones?), It made me angry because of the inequity/injustice and the reassurance I got was 'yeah that about sums up the way of the world'. As for the nudity it's minimal and not overly explicit. and the language/subtitles have occasional moments, but in the main it's the story. It really does hook you. After all this a story the Americans churn out at a staggering rate starring some moderately successful tv soap actress for weekday afternoons - in other words god awful clichéd pap. The difference here is there is a realism. ACID TEST: would I buy it again/recommend it - YES

Thought I was letting myself in for a cheeky little romp about a naught housemaid, seeing this described as a comedy by Prime. Well, how wrong we were. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful film, worth it just to see that bathroom, but it is neither titillating or titter-inducing. If you're in the mood for some more Korean divided society drama, then I'd recommend it.

I think this Korean film had so much potential but it failed to hit the bullseye. The story focuses on Eun-yi, played by Jeon Do-yeon, who becomes involved in a destructive love triangle while working as a housemaid for an upper-class family. The main problem is that the characters are cold and unsympathetic. Perhaps this is what director, Im Sang-soo, wanted for his upper-class household? The one character in the film that I should have been able to empathise with was the housemaid, but at the end of the day I didn't much care for her either. All in all, a bit of a let down. Only for those hardcore fans of contemporary South Korean cinema.

very pleased

Absolutely rubbish

Adult themed Korean movie which was well acted and interesting to watch. No problems with discs or English subtitles.

I am 60 yrs old and alone. I have not been 'lucky in love' but still need sexual release. More 'basic and varied films would be of help. The film was good and sent out a moral message, but at 60 my morals are pretty much set and this film is not what I expected when I 'Amazoned' porn, for sexual release!

The plot of the film has been summarized in other reviews. However, the cataclysmic import of the housemaid's suicide has been lost to reviewers with Western cultural sensibilities. In East Asian cultures, "losing face" is very, very important. Suicide is the highest and most honorable form of protest. So, the rich family was deeply humiliated by the housemaid's suicide, in front of them. This tragic ending is presaged in the excellent first scene of the movie, when amidst the indifferent bustling crowds of the city, an unknown young woman commits suicide. In the supremely ironic final scene, the rich celebrate, unperturbed, their young daughter's birthday. The whole film strongly resembles the excellent historical dramas of contemporary Korean cinema: The unbelievable refinement and opulence of the daily existence in the labyrinthine mansion, the abject submission and reverence of the servants to the master of the house and the members of his family, and the panic of the rich wife and her mother, over the possibility of an illegitimate heir to their "kingdom".