What really intrigued me about Kim Ki-young’s original Housemaid (1960) was when I read that the female audience were so incensed by the seducing housemaid’s character, that they stood up in cinema auditoriums and shouted: “Kill the wench!” I can’t help but think that a female watching Im Sang-soo’s 2010 remake would remark: “nice house.” … [Read More]
Title: Housemaid (1960)
The Housemaid (하녀, 1960) review: Kim Ki-young’s classic Hitchcockian thriller of desire and moral decay
Kim Ki-young’s 1960 thriller charts a middle-class family’s collapse after hiring a predatory maid. A claustrophobic, yet gripping, morality tale, The Housemaid is as vital today as it was on its release fifty years ago. No wonder that both Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook have cited it as a major influence on their work. [Read More]
Aimless bullet, scary housemaid and Korea’s modern history
Two classic films from Korean cinema’s golden age provided a fascinating compare-and-contrast exercise last Monday night at the Barbican. Encouragingly, the films were better attended than the comparable double-bill last year (Madame Freedom and My Mother and her Guest). Maybe that reflects the growing literacy of UK audiences when it comes to Korean film. Or … [Read More]