From a critical standpoint, remakes are usually a bad idea. They signify a certain lack of creative capital and make a disappointing assumption that audiences want to be spoon-fed a redundant diet. So I was surprised when Im Sang-soo, director of the inventive dark political comedy “The President’s Last Bang,” signed on to a remake of one of the most revered films in South Korea’s history. From my perspective, it was a no-win situation from the get go: Kim Ki-young’s original, made in 1960, is a psychological potboiler that would have given Hitchcock more than a run for his money. Although it had long been a lost masterpiece (with two reels missing from the only known print), a damaged but intact print was found in 1990 allowing the Korean Film Archive a chance to restore the film. The new print of the original was rolled out at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and was released last year on DVD in South Korea. Had the original tour de force not been resurrected, Im Sang-soo’s tawdry and trivial remake would not be such a bitter pill.

“The Housemaid” would have been much better off claiming vague inspiration from the original rather than the remake it was touted to be. Judged on its own, the film is incredibly stylish and staunchly sinister, and it deviates so much from the original that there is barely any resemblance either logistically or thematically. The illicit affair in Kim's film has the housemaid turning into the manipulative vixen and blackmailing the husband into betraying his hardworking, downtrodden wife. In Im’s version, the housemaid is not only the victim of the smarmy husband—who doesn’t bat an eye about cheating on his pregnant wife—but is also the eventual target of the severe and violent wife and her mother-in-law. The scales tip pretty far towards soap opera in this über rich household when our fair housemaid becomes mysteriously pregnant. And the tragic ending Im decides on fails to be dark or funny, only utterly absurd.

Jeon Do-yeon (of last year's "Secret Sunshine") plays the innocent, bubblegum-chewing Lee Eun-yi, who leaves her job in a kitchen to be the secondary housemaid in a house of incredible wealth, culture and privilege. Perfectly quaffed husband, wife and their young daughter hired the new housemaid in preparation for the arrival of twins from the very pregnant lady of the house. The senior maid, brilliantly played by Yun Yeo-jong, has spent years serving these petty sophisticates and her face reflects a bulletproof mask to the daily humiliation. Eun-yi’s pride is a little more malleable and she adds some warmth to the austere and cold ambiance. The young daughter responds to her kindness, as does the leering husband, Goh Hoon, wishing to unleash his pent-up manhood currently stifled by his pregnant wife. As word of betrayal and scandal surface, the venomous mother-in-law comes to the rescue. But Eun-yi is far more resilient than her childish nature lets on, and refuses to be a caged animal to the family’s threats and money.

“The Housemaid” is completely resolute in its own perversion, and admirably so. The arrogance portrayed (and mocked) is so thick you could cut it with a knife. A garish thriller, “The Housemaid” could easily float in the world with little complaint and even its fair share of mild praise. But its namesake doesn’t let it off so easily, and I wish Im had never put the comparison on the table in the first place. One is psychologically complex, and the other unapologetically superficial. Both are irrevocably locked into the social atmosphere from which they were made, but instead of being a reflection, they are almost an inversion of one another. They do nonetheless align in a preoccupation with class, and specifically that dynamic set up between the patriarch and the so-called hired help. But while the original asserts a notion that even people with means cannot overcome the lure of sex and pleasure, all Im Sang-soo seems to want to say, however ironically, is that man’s seed reigns supreme and that the rich can do whatever they want.

Review by:
Kathie Smith