South Korean thriller screens this weekend

A favourite at the Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals, The Housemaid is a remake of a 50-year-old South Korean thriller by director Sang-soo.

Eun-yi (Cannes Best Actress winner Jeon Do-youn of Secret Sunshine) is an innocent young woman hired as a housemaid in an upper-class household. She is given the responsibility of looking after the family’s daughter and her pregnant mother Hae-ra.

Eu Byung-sik is an older housemaid who has worked with the family for a long time and knows many secrets.

The master of the house, Hoon, takes advantage of his social position by regularly sneaking into the young housemaid’s bed.

Byung-sik tells Hae-ra’s mother Mi-hee about the visits and she plots to give Hae-ra the control over her husband.

Eun-yi becomes the unwitting victim in a series of traps laid by the women of the house. Her already fragile mental condition takes a turn for the worse and she decides to take the matter into her own hands. The housemaid needs to outwit them and escape their schemes to keep her sanity — and her life.

The film is described by organizers as “intensely erotic and fiendishly entertaining”.