Movie Review: The Housemaid

LITTLE ROCK — In Korean with English subtitles.

The Housemaid posits itself as a remake of Kim Ki-young’s 1960 blackand-white Korean thriller of the same name, but it might be more precise to say that the current film shares a title and the same basic premise as the beloved-in-some-circles camp classic.

It’s 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.

That’s not to say it’s an improvement - the movies are sufficiently different that comparisons aren’t particularly germane. In both filmsa young woman is employed by a wealthy family (in the modern version, she isn’t even a housemaid, she’s a nanny) and embarks on an ill-advised affair with the husband.