Freitag, 31. März 2017

The Housemaid

하녀 (The Housemaid) is a South Korean movie that was directed by Im Sang-soo and released in 2010. It is a remake of Kim Ki-young's movie "The Housemaid" that was released in 1960.

Story: Lee Eun-yi starts to work as a maid in the house of a rich family. Her task mainly is to take care of the daughter Nami but also do the housework and cook together with Byeong-sik, a woman who has been working for the family for a long time.
On a family trip Eun-yi gets into an affair with Hoon, the son of a rich family and her boss, who is married to Hae-ra. Hae-ra is pregnant with twins.
Soon Byeong-sik finds out that Eun-yi is pregnant with Hoon's child and tells Hae-ra's mother about it. So the women in the family are trying to get rid of the dark secret.

Cast: Jeon Do-yeon as Lee Eun-yi is the main character in this movie. While her acting was good I also think just by her looks she reminded me of what I would imagine a nanny to look like. Except for a few moments of definitely overdone acting she was good in this movie.
Lee Jung-jae as Hoon is the son of a rich family who always got what he wanted when he wanted it. The acting was good, too, but in some way his character confused me a bit in the end. Anyway, I think it was not about the acting itself but the character.
Hae-ra was played by Seo Woo and I think her acting was too flat. There were some emotions missing in the daily stuff, not only when acting like a jealous wife. So personally I didn't believe in the relationship between Hae-ra and Hoon because of her acting.
Park Ji-young as Hae-ra's mother has a similar problem in my opinion but it is not about a lack of emotions shown. It is more or less a too ruthless way of behavior her character showed and while I was able to believe her acting in that way the interactions with the family members were a little bit strange.
Lastly, Yoon Yeo-jeong as Byeong-sik seems cold and hard as stone but showed a nice change in character especially towards Eun-yi. I personally really think she is a good actress in these type of roles - she seems to become something like a mother or aunt and portrayed that change well.


I saw some really bad reviews of this movie because, yes, it is slow paced. Yes, the story itself is kinda obvious and some people don't even see a story (I don't know how though?). Yes, the ending really is ridiculous and totally influenced my rating but I'm not sure if it happened that way because of the original version from 1960.
However, I gave this movie a 5.5/10 for everything. While it did lack in aspects and definitely does not deserve the genre tags "thriller" and "suspense" it is a good, classical drama/melodrama and if you like those kind of movies you should go for it.


BE WARNED though since this movie has some nudity. So I would say watch it if you think you don't mind sexual scenes.




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