First Look: Im Sang-soo’s The Housemaid

Last week in my Cannes predictions, I attached a first glimpse of the Lee Jeong-jae and Jeon Do-yeon (who won Best Actress in Cannes for Secret Sunshine) pairing we’ll find Im Sang-soo’s remake of The Housemaid, and now we have a sweet first look at a Jeon Do-yeon again in a pic that gives us a vague idea of the subservient, domesticated nanny persona she embodies before the problems start to mount.

Coming to us in the 50th year anniversary of Kim Ki-young’s classic, the 1960 original tells of how a factory music teacher’s family is thrown into nightmare chaos when they take in a strange girl as a housemaid – she seduces him, is coerced into having an abortion, and then turns into revenge mode. Scripted by Gina Kim (who was originally slated to direct while the project was being shopped around for funding), the new version sees the housemaid being slightly older than the perky wife – which is being played by Seo Woo.