The Maid

I think I’m just about done with modern Asian ghost movies. You know the ones I’m talking about. After Ringu and The Ring became such massive hits, people the world over were flooded with ripoffs, as literally dozens of films got made that revolved around little ghost girls with long black hair going around jumping out at people and sometimes killing them. While there have been some good ones in the mix, for the most part they’ve all been pretty average at best, like this one.

The thing I most enjoyed about The Maid is its truly international feeling. A Filipina maid comes to Singapore to work for a Chinese family, and they all overcome their language barrier by speaking English. Sadly, that’s where the film’s innovation ends, as unfortunately for the new maid, she has begun working for them during the seventh month on the Chinese calendar, when, as we all know, the gates of Hell are flung open and zombies eat everyo—sorry, ghosts roam the land. Of course, not being Chinese, she doesn’t know what to do to avoid offending the ghosts, and soon they’re pestering her at all moments, driving her crazy. Of course, in any story like this, there has to be some shocking twist ending, though the first twist here was pretty obvious, and the second was just dumb.

There are much better examples of this type of movie in existence. Even if you’re jonesing for a fix of some ghostly Asian girl with long hair menacing people, you can go with a film like Exte, which was a pretty borderline brilliant film I saw at the New York Asian Film Festival over the summer. This one is just second rate.

Rating: **