Japanese colonial occupation, a civil war, and severe poverty. This certainly fits the melodramatic mould. Its story is about a marital crisis (a staple of the genre) caused by the employment of a new maid in a household, and its emotions often run violently high. But it is far from the product of an underdeveloped cinematic sensibility; with its aesthetic restraint and self-critical humour, it does not appropriate the usual overindulgent style of melodramas, giving it an unyielding power of individuality. However, this film isn’t just about the aesthetics it also manages to question the significance of traditional family values and social hierarchy. This film was made and released at a time where freedom of expression had come to Korean cinematic practices as then the right for film censorship had been transferred from the government to civil organizations, specifically the Film Ethics Committee. This freedom, both democratic and artistic, was momentary, however, due to a military coup d’état on the 6th of May 1961. The imprecise year from the revolution to the new military regime provides a temporal window of artistic cinematic practice and haebang (liberation). From 1960 to 1961, Korean auteurs such as Yu Hyun-mok and Lee Man-hui, together with Kim Ki-young, made films that addressed ‘dark social realities’ such as Aimless Bullet/ Oboltan (Yu Hyung-mok, 1961) and Kaleidoscope/ Jumadeung (Lee Man-hui, 1961) (along with much more). The Housemaid is commonly described as one of the three or four most significant Korean films of all time and was a huge box-office success upon original release. The movie has been widely praised as a classic displaying expertise in filmmaking skill during a relatively early period of Korean cinema history The editing of this movie is unlike anything I have ever seen before. How the scenes are cut especially are very distinct. It is as if the camera does a spin in a fast motion. I am not however fa>