A man's affair with his family's housemaid leads to dark consequences.A man's affair with his family's housemaid leads to dark consequences.A man's affair with his family's housemaid leads to dark consequences.
- Awards
- 15 wins & 11 nominations total
Jeon Do-yeon
- Eun-yi Li
- (as Do-youn Jeon)
Youn Yuh-jung
- Byung-sik
- (as Yuh-jung Youn)
Ahn Seo-hyun
- Na-mi
- (as Seo-hyun Ahn)
Kim Jin-ah
- Doctor
- (as Jin-ah Kim)
Hyeon-kyeong Lim
- Yoga Instructor
- (as Hyun-kyung Lim)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAround 1 hr 9 min, when Eun-yi is sitting on a bed, in the background is a large piece of art with English words faintly visible on it. The words are a quotation from Nathanael West's novel Miss Lonleyhearts, a work with many themes that mirror those in this movie such as depression, lonliness, drinking, adultery, and physical abuse.
- GoofsThe body harness is visible during the hanging.
- Quotes
Hae-ra's Mother: With a rich husband, cheating is just part of the package.
- ConnectionsFeatured in At the Movies: Cannes Film Festival 2010 (2010)
- SoundtracksLa Mamma Morta
from the opera, "Andrea Chinier"
Performed by Maria Callas
Composed by Umberto Giordano
Courtesy of EMI Records Ltd.
By arrangement with Warner Music Korea, a Warner Music Group Company
Featured review
A South Korean soap opera, The Housemaid is a combination of Fatal Attraction, In the Mood for Love, and myriad other adultery thrillers. Its sensual sheen and quiet sexuality underpin a grim war between servants and the ruling class with no one winning.
Adapted from an earlier Korean version by director Sang-soo Im, it tells of naïve Eun-yi (Jeon Do-yuon) being hired as a maid in a wealthy household, whose head, Hoon (Jung-Jae-Lee), takes her as a love interest while his pregnant wife comes to term and the other ladies gradually find out that Eun-yi is pregnant as well. While the house is meticulously modern and opulent, an undercurrent of evil runs through it as if it were a Poe tale.
Although at times Housemaid moves slowly, especially in the mid section, no audience could be indifferent to the haughty treatment of the servants by the rich, who treat them as you might think Thomas Jefferson treated his own slaves, with decorum but decidedly selfish and cruel. Eun-yi is not totally innocent, for she enjoys the master's attention, and Hoon can be partially forgiven because of the harpies like his wife and mother-in-law, who treat him like a child, or in the case of his wife, ignore his sexual needs except to create children. That he plays a mean classical piano and drinks wine like an aristocrat used to the fineness of wealth, Hoon is partially an animal of the lowest order, giving in to his appetites protected by his wealth and his ladies.
The final moments are the payoff as most everyone in not spared humiliation or violence. Although the connection between the opening and closing is a bit too much of a figurative and literal connection, The Housemaid holds up admirably as Gothic horror in a modern Asian setting replaying the themes of class conflict and revenge.
Adapted from an earlier Korean version by director Sang-soo Im, it tells of naïve Eun-yi (Jeon Do-yuon) being hired as a maid in a wealthy household, whose head, Hoon (Jung-Jae-Lee), takes her as a love interest while his pregnant wife comes to term and the other ladies gradually find out that Eun-yi is pregnant as well. While the house is meticulously modern and opulent, an undercurrent of evil runs through it as if it were a Poe tale.
Although at times Housemaid moves slowly, especially in the mid section, no audience could be indifferent to the haughty treatment of the servants by the rich, who treat them as you might think Thomas Jefferson treated his own slaves, with decorum but decidedly selfish and cruel. Eun-yi is not totally innocent, for she enjoys the master's attention, and Hoon can be partially forgiven because of the harpies like his wife and mother-in-law, who treat him like a child, or in the case of his wife, ignore his sexual needs except to create children. That he plays a mean classical piano and drinks wine like an aristocrat used to the fineness of wealth, Hoon is partially an animal of the lowest order, giving in to his appetites protected by his wealth and his ladies.
The final moments are the payoff as most everyone in not spared humiliation or violence. Although the connection between the opening and closing is a bit too much of a figurative and literal connection, The Housemaid holds up admirably as Gothic horror in a modern Asian setting replaying the themes of class conflict and revenge.
- JohnDeSando
- Mar 7, 2011
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Người Hầu Gái
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $157,961
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $16,670
- Jan 23, 2011
- Gross worldwide
- $15,038,301
- Runtime1 hour 47 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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