The Housemaid (1960)
下女
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
The original Korean domestic nightmare — a factory music teacher, a housemaid, a staircase — and the ancestor of Parasite.
Kim Dong-sik teaches music to the women who work in a textile factory and accompanies their choir. The film opens with him and his wife reading a newspaper story about a housemaid. The family has just moved into a new two-storey house, paid for by his wife, pregnant with their third child, who has worn herself out sewing. When a factory girl sends Dong-sik a love letter, he reports her, and she has to leave her job. Her friend Cho Kyung-hee, who put her up to it, starts coming to the house for piano lessons. At Dong-sik's request she finds the family a housemaid, Myung-sook, a young woman from the factory, who is strange from the start: she catches rats with her bare hands, smokes, spies on the family and teases the children.
While his wife is away resting at her parents' home, news comes that the girl who left the factory has taken her own life. That night Kyung-hee declares her love to Dong-sik, and he throws her out. The maid, who has watched it all, threatens to tell, and seduces him. She becomes pregnant. Dong-sik confesses to his wife, who talks the maid into ending the pregnancy, and she loses the child.
After that the maid grows wilder. The wife gives birth to a son. The maid tells the Kims' young son, Chang-soon, that the water she has just given him was poisoned; he panics, falls down the stairs and dies. It was only water. When the maid threatens to expose everything at the factory, the wife, to save the family's name and her husband's job, sends Dong-sik upstairs to the maid's room. At last the maid tells him she will die, and that if he dies with her she will leave the rest of his family alone. He agrees. As death comes he pulls away from her and goes down the stairs to die beside his wife.
Then the film returns to its first scene, Dong-sik reading the newspaper with his wife. He turns to the audience and warns that this could happen to anyone.
Starring
Kim Jin-kyuas Kim Dong-sik
A music teacher at a textile factory, newly moved into a two-storey house, whose affair with the housemaid destroys his family.
Kim Dong-sik’s story
Dong-sik teaches music to the women of a textile factory, and his wife's sewing has paid for their new two-storey house. He reports a factory girl who writes to him, and she has to leave. His piano pupil, Kyung-hee, finds the family a maid. With his wife away, he hears that the girl he reported has taken her own life, and that night he throws Kyung-hee out when she declares her love. The maid, who saw it, blackmails him into an affair. He confesses to his wife; after his son's death he is sent upstairs to the maid. When she asks him to die with her, he agrees, but at the last he goes down the stairs to die beside his wife. Then he turns to the audience and warns that this could happen to anyone.
Ju Jeung-ryuas Mrs Kim, Dong-sik's wife
Dong-sik's wife, who wore herself out sewing to pay for the house and will sacrifice almost anything to keep it.
Mrs Kim, Dong-sik's wife’s story
Dong-sik's wife has worn herself out at her sewing machine to pay for the new house, and keeps sewing to buy a television and send the children to college. Pregnant with her third child, she goes to her parents' home to rest, and comes back to a husband who confesses his affair with the maid. Outraged, she talks the maid into ending her pregnancy. She gives birth to a son; then her young son Chang-soon falls down the stairs and dies after the maid tells him that his water was poisoned. Rather than go to the police, she buys the maid's silence, even sending her husband upstairs to her, and she tries to poison the maid's food. At the end her husband comes down the stairs to die beside her, asking her to take care of the children.
Lee Eun-shimas Myung-sook
A young factory worker hired as the family's maid, who seduces the master and takes over the house.
Myung-sook’s story
Myung-sook comes from the factory to be the Kims' maid and is strange from the start: she catches rats with her bare hands, smokes, spies on the family and teases the children. Having watched Dong-sik throw out Kyung-hee, she blackmails and seduces him. When the family comes back, she tells him she is his concubine now, and she is soon pregnant. Talked into ending the pregnancy by his wife, she grows wilder. She tells the Kims' son that his water was poisoned, and he falls down the stairs and dies; it was only water. Threatening to tell the factory, she takes the master upstairs. At last she says she will die and spare his family if he dies with her. He agrees, and as she is dying he pulls away and goes down to his wife.
Um Aing-ranas Cho Kyung-hee
A factory worker who takes piano lessons at the house and is in love with Dong-sik.
Why it matters
Koreanfilm.org has called The Housemaid a consensus pick as one of the three greatest Korean films, and Bong Joon-ho has said it inspired Parasite: both put people from below inside a family's home as a threat to everything it has built. The Kims' new two-storey house is what a family of 1960 was supposed to want, a piano, an upstairs, a wife who sews to pay for it, and Kim Ki-young is merciless about what a respectable family will give up to keep it: a child, a husband, its own sense. The film is also of its time in treating a woman's desire as a kind of horror. The West discovered it only decades later, and the Korean Film Archive restored it with support from Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation. Its closing warning, that this could happen to anyone, makes it both a cautionary tale and a joke on anyone who takes it as one.