The Housemaid

Sixty years before Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, the forgotten master of Korean cinema, Kim Ki-young, told a different story about a middle-class family haunted by an outsider. A recently hired maid (Lee Eun-shim) catches the eye of Mr Kim (Kim Jin-kyu), whose wife (Ju Jeung-ryu) is pregnant. From this melodramatic starting point, the director weaves a tangled web of dependency, desire, and intrigue that straddles both thriller and horror. Revolving around sexuality and class issues, The Housemaid was an inspiration for Bong Joon-ho and the entire generation of contemporary South Korean filmmakers. It is only in recent years that we are discovering the treasures of the golden era of Korean cinema – the 1960s and early 1970s. Kim’s classic holds a special place as a quirky gem, restored to its original version thanks to the recent uncovering of two lost reels.

Sebastian Smoliński

Kim Ki-young (1919–1998) was a South Korean director known for his intense horror films, often focusing on the psychology of their female characters. The first full-fledged expression of his style was The Housemaid (1960), which is widely considered one of the greatest Korean films of all time. His later films include The Insect Woman (1972) and Iodo (1977).

Restored in 2008 by the Korean Film Archive (KOFA), in association with The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and HFR-Digital Film laboratory. Additional restoration funded by Armani, Cartier, Qatar Airways, and Qatar Museum Authority.