Popular reviews

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  Review by kailey ★★★★ 11

  please choose the synonym of the word given

  1. family

  a. unit
  b. love
  c. status
  d. pain

  2. money

  a. bone tired
  b. unattainable
  c. a cage
  d. everything

  3. children

  a. rude little buggers
  b. an investment
  c. your future
  d. dead

  4. love letters

  a. innocent
  b. a child's first love
  c. a dark spark
  d. she stands outside the window in the rain

  5. marriage

  a. necessary
  b. repression
  c. words that pierce like weapons
  d. his hand is cold

  6. housemaid

  a. chores
  b. rat poison above the sink
  c. her dark hair piled above her pale face
  d. you brought this upon yourself

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  Review by Zoë 🐝 ★★★ 1

  The Housemaid is basically only male anxiety. Male anxiety about what would happen if women treated men like how men treat women (systemically not individually). Our main male character is technically in the position of power as a patriarch and a teacher, and when his power goes unchecked, his world is safe and normal. But as soon as a student is inappropriate to him, his grip on male power (specifically sexual dominance) disappears. He is the one being desired inappropriately. He is the one being assaulted. He is the object that one woman can give to another. The Housemaid is terrified of the power being flipped, even ending with the intention to quell its male audience's fears about the film…

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  Review by Aaron ★★★★ 10

  Part of March Around the World 2017

  “Why did you lie?” “Your parents taught me how to.”

  For a certain stripe of cinephile, the “lost film” is something of an obsession, as demonstrated by Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation and its tireless restoration efforts. Figures vary as to how many movies have vanished—in 2013, the Library of Congress estimated that 75% of silent-era pictures have been permanently lost—but what is certain is that, between fires and wars and simple neglect, many films that were will never be again.

  It is a great loss, made all the greater for the unknowability of its breadth. Naturally not all, or even many, of these lost films would be gems—we may rest relatively assured that…

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  Review by Christina ★★★★

  “don’t say his name or i’ll stab you.“

  everyone say thank you to marty scorsese’s world cinema project for restoring this thrilling bad boy!

  kim ki-young‘s macabre and melodramatic study of the korean social structure provides plenty of suspense, keeping the audience on guard. toying with incredibly bold subjects for 1960, the housemaid centers on a piano composer, his family and their young, parasitic maid who poses an obstacle to their upper class endeavor for the perfect family picture. 

  hailed as a korean classic, the director lays sexual politics and power dynamics as the groundwork for this morbidly sensual tale of manipulation. myung-sook, the love-struck housemaid is our fiery and passionate villainess. coming from nothing and utilizing the little leverage she…

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  Review by sakana1 ★★★½ 18

  This entire review is about the last 90 seconds of the movie so, yes, there are spoilers.

  For nearly all of the running time of The Housemaid I was either angry or distracted; no matter my other emotions, I was always deeply resentful that I was being forced to spend time with this collection of complete fools. All of that changed, however, in the 90 seconds when the "it was all a dream!"-type ending recast everything in an urgently fascinating way. I still hate everyone, but the ending suggested I'm supposed to, and it opens the film up in ways that are both frustrating and thrilling.

  Let me explain. The main thing that so exasperated me about the story of…

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  Review by KYK ★★½ 2

  must have been shocking when it first came out. there are some strong what ever happened to baby jane vibes (two years prior, too!) and likely cites hitchcock’s suspicion as an influence. i was impressed by a lot of it — the visual language with hands (the male lead is a piano teacher) and how successfully it turns into a nail biter of a thriller — but ultimately it feels like “sorry men are trash but it’s the woman’s fault for seducing/inviting the seducer into the home.” and trust me i usually love movies about women going mad. 

  
  ps. 1960s korean sounds so weird it took me out of the acting pretty immediately too 

  
  
  

  35mm. FSLC.

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  Review by Jaime Rebanal ★★★★★ 3

  It's all about what's at the top of the staircase. That's one of two significant symbols that Kim Ki-young reinforces into your mind when you're watching The Housemaid. For when you look at the appearance of a staircase in the film, you also see how it represents the disparity between the upper class and the working class.

  The Housemaid is a film all about lust, desires drawn out as a result of a system that regulates how its citizens act - creating the falsified and perceived image we see up close. Such desires can only become so strong, the borders between the upper class and the working class only come down ever so slowly, an ordinary young housemaid can manifest…

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  Review by ❄️ Cammmalot ❄️ ★★★★ 4

  I only wanted to save my family from this living hell.

  How far would you go to keep your family together?

  This dark melodrama crams an entire soap opera into a single film that’s packed with more twists and turns than a bowl full of rat-poisoned noodles.

  Kim Ki-young directs the hell out of this story and keeps you guessing right to the end.

  Bong Joon-ho has said this was an influence on Parasite, and although it’s a very different story, you can certainly see the inspirational elements.

  You can’t simply overlook such indecent behavior.

  
  Cinematic Time Capsule - 1960 Ranked

  Martin Scorsese’s Favorite Films

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  Review by Cormac 👑 ★★★★ 9

  Did you like Parasite? Were you a fan of its innovative and revolutionary approach to architecture and stairs in particular as symbolism for social imbalance and vehicle for horror-like dread? How about it’s unique ability to infuse anti-bourgeois commentary on Korean class warfare, familial disintegration and fluid tracking shots for a genre-bending thrill ride of unnerving, at times jaw-dropping effect?

  If you answered yes to one or more of the above, then have I got the 60 year-old movie for you! Just add a touch more sexual obsession, a spoonful of venomous melodrama, and a generous helping of betrayal, revenge and all things deceitful; and only then will you begin to understand what you’re getting yourself into with Kim Ki-Young’s The Housemaid.

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  Review by ScreeningNotes ★★★★ 2

  "This never would have happened if we had stayed in our old house."

  Bong Joon-ho recommended The Housemaid as homework for Parasite, and it’s not hard to see why. While this might not have the same sort of mission-statement class consciousness or explicit economic critique as that film, it shares an examination of South Korean domestic spaces and their reliance on forgotten or erased labor, their reliance on the labor of folks the middle class would rather not think about.

  Mr. and Mrs. Kim got pregnant and moved into a new house, and now they have too much housework to do on their own, so they decide they need a maid. Mr. Kim works at a local factory as a…

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  Review by zambetty ★

  What kind of rat poison is that? Why does everyone have to open two other cupboards before they get to the rat poison cupboard, where the rat poison has been the whole time? How many times can someone fall asleep at a sewing machine? How many people can fall down the stairs?

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  Review by Terése Flynn ★★★★ 4

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Rat poison is a viscous thing to die from. It makes your blood thinner and makes you die because of internal bleeding. You can vomit blood. Piss blood. And the inner bleeding can show as bruising on your body.

  Rat poison is the main ingredient in The Housemaid. There's a bottle in the kitchen cabinet waiting to get used right from the beginning of the film. An early indication of this film spiraling down in an disastrous way. But dying from rat poison is a long and painful experience. And the true rat poison in this story is the housemaid, and the family all chose to take the rat poison willingly. There's no good versus evil. And you sure shouldn't…