Soap-Opera Intrigue in "The Housemaid" Remake

Fifty years after Kim Ki-young's postwar hothouse original, Im Sang-soo attempts a sleek, breathless update to the tale of a household riven by a sexy domestic. This time around, instead of a family-man music teacher getting ensnared, a bored, feckless maid (Jeon Do-yeon) is seduced by a rich scion and...

By Nicolas Rapold

March 10, 2011

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Fifty years after Kim Ki-young's postwar hothouse original, Im Sang-soo attempts a sleek, breathless update to the tale of a household riven by a sexy domestic. This time around, instead of a family-man music teacher getting ensnared, a bored, feckless maid (Jeon Do-yeon) is seduced by a rich scion and chewed up by the conniving women in his orbit. Im pushes the heat and danger of the affair, especially in one pulse-quickening encounter that fills the screen with the pair's flush skin. But despite eccentric touches, like a handheld street-shot overture and Grand Guignol Omen references, there's little difference between this story and soap-opera intrigue.

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