In the opening of this engrossing film set in South Korea, a woman leaps to her death from a building in a heavily populated business area. There are plenty of people curious about what has happened but others have no interest whatsoever. It's just another day in the city where life and death are to be seen everywhere.

Young Eun-yi (Jeon Do-youn) looks at the chalk outline of the body in the street and then goes back to her cramped apartment where she shares the same bed with her roommate, another woman. Byung-sik (Youn Yuh-jung), a no-nonsense housekeeper for a very wealthy family, seeks her out with an offer to be a nanny and servant. She accepts the job and is awed by the palatial house of Hoon (Lee Jung-Jae), a self-absorbed rich man with a pretty young wife Hae-ra (Seo Woo), who is pregnant with twins, and Nami (Ahn Seo-hyun), a very smart and sensitive young daughter.

Eun-yi wins the affection of the little girl since she has a childlike personality herself. Hae-ra seems to be relaxed with her as well. One day Hoon catches a glimpse of her thigh as she washes the tub and after an unsatisfactory sexual interlude with his wife, he wanders into Eun-yi's room and asks her to perform oral sex. It is the act of an egocentric male who needs continual reminders of his power over others. Hoon appreciates elegant art, loves to savor expensive wines, and in his spare moments retires to a large room in his mansion to play Beethoven. He takes what he wants and has no feelings of guilt or regret about his infidelity.

When the housekeeper finds out about the forbidden relationship she tries to make it work in her favor but soon finds herself standing in the shadows as Hae-ra's domineering mother (Park Ji-young) arrives to dispense orders and make sure that the now pregnant Eun-yi does not give birth to a child. They try to pay her off but she refuses to have an abortion. The vengeful family comes up with another plan.

The Housemaid reflects a world in which less than 4 percent of the personal wealth of the 225 richest people could give all the poor of the world access to basic medical and educational amenities as well as adequate nutrition; a world in which those who sit behind office desks punching keyboards are paid ten times as much as the people who clean the office toilets and a hundred times as much as those who assemble the keyboards in the Third World. As Scott Russell Sanders puts it, "Wealth does not precipitate like dew from the air; it comes out of the earth and the labor of many hands. When a few hands hold onto great wealth, using it only for personal ease and display, that is a betrayal of the common life, the sole source of riches."

Writer and director Im Sang-soo has captured the affluence, selfishness, and amorality which set the rich family apart from the housekeeper and the nanny. At one point, Byun-sik can't hold back her indignation against her employers. Speaking of their cruel and subversive arrogance and sense of entitlement she says, "It's revolting, disgusting, nauseating, and shameless." Although Eun-yi can't match the cunning and cruelty of Hoon and his family once they set out to destroy her, she comes up with her own valiant protest designed to leave an indelible impression on their consciousness.


Special features on the DVD include the making of The Housemaid.