The 1960 erotic thriller “The Housemaid” stirred a lot of buzz when it was released. Touted as the most provocative film of its time for touching on such taboo subjects as sex, adultery, revenge, murder, and a more serious theme of class division, it has been acclaimed by critics as a film that forever changed the course of Korean cinema. The film portrays a destructive love affair between a middle-class married man and a housemaid in his home. Behind the seemingly hackneyed plot, the movie brings confusion into the typical roles of husband and wife and challenges the traditional class definitions. Viewers today may be stunned to learn such an unconventional movie was shot in Korea in the 1960s.

Five decades later, in 2010, the film was remade with the same title. The new version, directed by Im Sang-soo, follows the same plot as the original one, featuring a wealthy married couple and their housemaid, who has an affair with the husband. A young, cheerful divorcee named Eun-yi is hired as a housemaid in a lavish mansion owned by successful businessman Hoon. Intrigue begins when Hoon knocks Eun-yi’s door in secret and the housemaid yields up to the temptation of the handsome, powerful master of the house. His visits become frequent, and Eun-yi becomes pregnant. Before long, an older housemaid, Byeong-sik, discovers the affair and reports it to the man’s pregnant wife who is expecting twins. Obsessed with anger and jealousy, the wife plots with her mother to get rid of the illegitimate baby the housemaid conceives. Eun-yi is forced to have an abortion despite her pleas to keep the baby. The wife and her mother pretend not to know anything about the housemaid in order to maintain their social positions. Even the domineering mother quietly endures the insulting remarks of her arrogant son-in-law, “Mother-in-law, it’s not just your daughter who can give birth to my child.” As Eun-yi loses her baby and the wife gives birth to twins, everything seems to return to normal. But the once-naïve housemaid takes her revenge by killing herself in front of the family in the most shocking and tragic way she can possibly imagine.

The film sheds light on the dark side of humanity through disturbing characters. While the elite couple and the mother-in-law live in a luxurious mansion with marble floors and enjoy fine wine, they are snobbish and greedy for power. They have no sense of guilt about bullying the weak. The subtle tension in the modern social hierarchy and the bitter divide between social classes are elaborately depicted through the eyes of the weakest person among the characters—the housemaid.

The movie was abuzz with anticipation, because of the fact that it was a remake of the 1960 piece of the same title by legendary filmmaker Kim Ki-young. Also, its star-studded cast featuring 2007 Cannes Best Actress Award winner Jeon Do-yeon and heartthrob Lee Jeong-jae drew special attention. In fact, the movie was invited to the competition division at the 63rd Cannes international film festival in 2010 even before its local release here. Many critics praised the movie as a stylish, sexy thriller about a young woman caught in a complicated web of a wealthy family’s games. But many others also say the psychological thriller failed to live up to expectations, only revealing how bold and exceptional the original work was, reminding the viewers of the fact that the 1960 version was clearly ahead of time.