The Housemaid

Im Sang-soo can't improve on Kim Ki-young's 1960 original, a jaIm Sang-soo can't improve on Kim Ki-young's 1960 original, a jarring and operatic cult favorite. Still, he does tweak the themes in intriguing fashion.

The situation continues to fester, the balance of power shifts back and forth among some wonderfully defined characters.

Exudes a surreal sense of deranged domestic privilege.

The movie kowtows to the old truism that the rich are different - but it does it with a sardonic smile.

Writer-director Im Sang-Soo injects a certain sense of otherworldliness in the proceedings -- the final scene is straight from David Lynchland --- which may not make things mesmerizing, but does deliver a consistently odd angle.

But nothing could prepare me for what does indeed transpire, the final scenes having a grotesque opulence that is both entrancing and disgusting all at the same time.

Im saves the grotesquery of the wealthy to the last minute. But the build up (to the not so subtle climax and ending that can be read as slapdash) is so engaging and understated that it only amplifies the brilliance of Im's precision filmmaking.

A scathing picture-with overtones of R.W. Fassbinder and Claude Chabrol-of the selfish, cruel South Korean elite....

Housemaid puts your faith in the New Korean Cinema to the ultimate test.

Unfortunately, [director Im Sang-soo] completely botches the job, missing the subversive potential in the outrageously melodramatic material, which French critic Jean-Michel Frodon has likened to Luis Buñuel.