Im saves the grotesquery of the wealthy to the last minute. But the build up (to the not so subtle climax and ending that can be read as slapdash) is so engaging and understated that it only amplifies the brilliance of Im's precision filmmaking.

| Mar 21, 2021

A scathing picture-with overtones of R.W. Fassbinder and Claude Chabrol-of the selfish, cruel South Korean elite....

| Feb 14, 2021

Housemaid puts your faith in the New Korean Cinema to the ultimate test.

| Jun 8, 2020

Unfortunately, [director Im Sang-soo] completely botches the job, missing the subversive potential in the outrageously melodramatic material, which French critic Jean-Michel Frodon has likened to Luis Buñuel.

| Dec 14, 2018

While it effectively sticks the knife into upper-class mores, it certainly has a been-there, done-that feel to it that the former does not.

| Oct 4, 2017

Im Sang-soo can't improve on Kim Ki-young's 1960 original, a jaIm Sang-soo can't improve on Kim Ki-young's 1960 original, a jarring and operatic cult favorite. Still, he does tweak the themes in intriguing fashion.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 12, 2016

The situation continues to fester, the balance of power shifts back and forth among some wonderfully defined characters.

| Dec 13, 2011

Quick to show its characters' skin but less inclined to explore what lies beneath it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 25, 2011

With the honourable exception of a film-saving Byung-sik, the characters are too unpleasant and two-dimensional to keep it together.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 14, 2011

...an echo of the 1960 film perhaps, but it's an echo that has been compressed and processed, run through the stomp box that is director Im Sang-soo's imagination.

| Original Score: 86/100 | May 15, 2011

Exudes a surreal sense of deranged domestic privilege.

| Original Score: B | Apr 17, 2011

Im Sang-soo's The Housemaid either doesn't know what it wants to be, or is trying to be too many things at once. Few films can claim to be over-ambitious and half-hearted at the same time, but there you go.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 11, 2011

The graphic sex scenes radiate an uncommon heat, and Im can pull off a hugely effective shock when he wants to.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 18, 2011

Can't touch the original's spiraling perversity

| Mar 14, 2011

Evil seems to lurk in every shadowy corner and the director's choice of a primarily brown palette imposes a layer of foreboding over even the most apparently innocent of scenes.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Mar 4, 2011

The movie kowtows to the old truism that the rich are different - but it does it with a sardonic smile.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 4, 2011

Writer-director Im Sang-Soo injects a certain sense of otherworldliness in the proceedings -- the final scene is straight from David Lynchland --- which may not make things mesmerizing, but does deliver a consistently odd angle.

| Original Score: B- | Feb 25, 2011

Im's reboot spreads itself too thin with cliché, wasting its brilliantly evocative mise-en-scène on silly theatrics and familiar cries for revenge.

| Feb 23, 2011

The Housemaid isn't all that deep, but it's consistent fun, on the cusp between art and softcore nonsense.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 19, 2011

But nothing could prepare me for what does indeed transpire, the final scenes having a grotesque opulence that is both entrancing and disgusting all at the same time.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 18, 2011