The film’s core: The 2010 Korean The Housemaid (directed by Im Sang-soo) is a tense, operatic melodrama about class, desire, and power. It follows a young woman hired as a housemaid for a wealthy family; her sexual relationship with the husband fractures the household, exposing moral rot, exploitation, and escalating violence. The movie uses heightened style, symbolic mise-en-scène, and melodramatic extremes to critique inequality and the commodification of bodies.