The Maid

A horror story about a maid in Singapore? We've heard quite a few, but in this one instead of a horrified Ma'am, it is the maid who is standing at the gates of hell. And unfortunately they are wide open.

Rosa Dimaano (Alessandra De Rossi) is a trusting, pretty Filipina orphan who comes to Singapore to see the world. But it is the start of the lunar seventh month, Hungry Ghost time, and the world is a place of confusing and jarring chaos. Ignorance is no protection and Rosa inevitably offends "something" and soon she is seeing ghosts and having nightmares. Her only happiness is playing with her employers' simple son, Ah Soon (Benny Soh), but to be honest this is hardly a relief as he is also really spooky.

Rosa's employers - a solitary chain smoking artist (Chen Shu Cheng) and an unpredictably tempered dressmaker (Hong Hui Fang) - live in a near derelict shophouse, cluttered with Wayang costumes, creaking cupboards and glowering pictures of the ancestors. Add a failing electricity supply, no telephone or TV and Rosa is absolutely alone in her misery. Or is she? From "The" Title to the twisting joints and/or heads of creepy kids, crawling long-haired wide-eyed zombies, blurring of identities, burnt photos, unprovoked suicides, the proliferation of grabbing-stalking-glaring-weeping-hanging ghosts and even the scorpions, this is a tribute to Asian horror. All the traditional, requisite and much loved scares are here and impossible to miss thanks to a heavy hand on the violin (think amplified Hitchcock).

Though regularly repetitive (especially by the nth explanation of the state of things during the seventh month) and disjointed, The Maid does not suffer from a lack of substance. No doubt this year we will all be more careful about kicking along the ash-ridden pavement and sitting in the front row of the Chinese opera.

I liked the premise and from what I read on the box it sounded like it would be interesting, and I love a good ghost story. However, I was a bit disappointed by this movie. Not entirely mind you, it had a rather good cast and there was some good ghost moments. Still it was so thoroughly predictable...anyone who has seen say "The Sixth Sense" or "A Tale of Two Sisters" will have no problem with the shocking ending seen here. Other than it might be a bit more graphic than those two movies. The movie of a Phillipine girl who goes to work as a maid for a Singapore couple and starts her job during the time of the year when the locals must observe many customs relating to the dead or experience their wrath. Lots of burning paper and other very nice visuals during this part of the film. The job is quite easy from what I see too as the gal who was hired as a maid only does a little of this and that and when she does try to sweep up she gets in trouble with her employer. At least this gives or gal plenty of time to look after her employer's mildly retarded son and see all sorts of creepy stuff. My favorite was the play where she sat in the front row. So all in all a typical ghost flick with nothing really new to add to the mix except for a mysterious girl who dies by leaping from a food court. Didn't quite understand that one. So if you like this type of movie you may think it is an okay flick if you are looking for something new, this is not it.

A Filipino girl is sent to work in the dilapidated home of a Singapore couple, the husband an oddball, chain-smoking artist and the wife a shrewish dressmaker. They have a grown son who is slow-witted, and who the maid Rosa befriends. She has arrived for work at a point in the year when vindictive ghosts are on the prowl, according to the local lore. Soon enough, she is being confronted by them. She also discovers evidence of a previous maid who appears to be missing under questionable circumstances. We get plenty of creaking doors, scary faces and fleeting shadows in the best Asian horror film tradition. There's even a scorpion or two thrown in for good measure. This is definitely not your typical American ghost movie, although strident sound effects and repetitive scary faces may wear a bit thin on American viewers after awhile. Give it a try.

A new maid is hired to do random chores around a residence in the Philippines. She is not familiar with the local customs, and learns that she has begun working during the month reserved for dead spirits to be honored. Innocently disturbing one of the ghosts, she begins to learn of a terrifying secret.

The cover of this movie compared it to "Sixth Sense" and "The Grudge", which I think does this film a terrible disservice. Yes, there are aspects of "The Sixth Sense" (seeing ghosts) and I can understand the "Grudge" similarities, to a point. But I don't think a viewer should think of this movie in terms of these other films because there is something unique here that really allows it to stand out from other Asian horror films.

The lead character is interesting because she is both trying to solve a mystery and is herself a mystery: what does the ghost want from her? But also, why has she been summoned to be the maid for this new family (if you're like me, you'll quickly discover she never has to clean anything or watch any children). They're both interesting questions, and I think the viewer will like how they play out -- hints are dropped along the way, but I don't think you'll catch them all on the first watch.

What might be a drawback for the film is the use of loud noises to startle the audience (doors creaking and such) and a few times where a ghost jumps into the frame completely unexpectedly. In some ways this was a cheap trick to get a scare out of the audience, but as someone who doesn't scare easily (I've seen more horror films already this year than you'll probably ever see in your life) I have to admit I was a bit jumpy and had to grip the blanket a little tighter.

A strength of the film was the creator's obvious awareness that Americans (and other non-Filipinos) would be watching this. The religious observances are explained in a way that is understandable but doesn't treat the viewer like a child or an idiot. I have no idea if the holiday observed here is real, but even if it's not I was convinced. The culture is very well captured.

Give this one a chance -- I found it to be so much more than I expected. After I was starting to think all Asian horror followed such similar patterns (which is not to say American horror doesn't), this was so refreshing. Solid plot, great characters... and a puzzle piece ending that will leave you feeling this one comes complete.

It's not that difficult to understand why The Maid was successful during its run at the local theatres, and have garnered international attention. I did not catch the movie when it premiered in the theatres (that's another story for another day), but one of the many reasons/excuses I had was that the horror genre of late from Asia were usually laughable efforts, with mediocre story lines, sometimes bordering on the ludicrous.

Not that The Maid didn't have its fair share, but somehow it was tolerable, and actually tried to tell a decent story, which I enjoyed. While some might say it's influences have come from movies like The Sixth Sense and Ju-on, I thought it was a decent effort for our current generation of directors to have spun a yarn from the horror genre, currently monopolized by the Japanese and the Koreans. Curiosity about the effort locally had me borrowing this DVD, and I shall unabashedly say I'd enjoy every moment of it, though not without some gripes of course.

The premise is set entirely during the Lunar Seventh Month, which is the month where the Chinese believe the denizens from Hell are released for their holiday on Earth, where they can roam around, and spook folks who do not observe the rules. Rules like not returning home late, not stepping on offerings, not turning back when someone calls you out, and so on. The Maid, seen through the eyes of domestic worker Rosa Dimano (the very beautiful Alessandra de Rossi from The Philippines), introduces audiences and refreshes those familiar with the strange customs, about the do's and the don'ts.

New to Singapore, her employment comes from an elderly couple, the Teos (television veterans Chen Shu Cheng and Hong Hui Fang), who head a Teochew opera troupe. While the Hokkien dialect has made its fair exposure in local cinema thanks to Jack Neo movies, it's refreshing to hear the Teochew language being the lingua franca of choice in the movie. It doesn't take long for Rosa to violate some of the unwritten laws, and therefore, she starts to experience things that go bump in the day and night.

Yup, strange things happen in the day as well, which I find peculiar. Anyway, be it in limited lighting, or broad daylight, the cinematography by Lucas Jodoigne was beautiful, and probably added a positive dimension to the overall feel of the movie, as did the art director Daniel Lim. Were there moments of disappointment? You bet, and the major one is with the spirits themselves. They just stand around doing nothing! Despite relying on the usual tricks up the sleeves of horror filmmakers, like the passing shadows, musical crescendos, creaking furniture, and close up fast cuts, the technique used never go beyond that, and the spirits just hang around. What gives? Some editing needed to be tightened as certain scenes were inserted without much thought to narrative flow, and looked a bit out of place as a transitional scene.

That said, I'm still of the opinion that Kelvin Tong's The Maid has its niched appeal, and more importantly, cemented his ability to make commercial films that can be enjoyed by the masses. If his Love Story had put me off, The Maid had shown what he is capable of, besides his debut with Eating Air, which I also enjoyed.

The visual transfer is decently done, and allows for details to be seen even in scenes with little lighting, rather than becoming all black. The colours were vibrant during the opera scenes, while maintaining the dull atmosphere of the Teo family. English and Mandarin subtitles are available, though for the first 2 minutes of the film where there was a dialect voice-over, somehow the much needed translation explaining some Seventh Month superstition was missed. While subtitling was good, there were some noticeable grammatical errors in the beginning.

You're given a choice of either Dolby Digital 2.0 or 5.1, so depending on how spooked you want to be when the music by Joe Ng and Alex Oh comes on, you might want to tweak it for that surround sound capability.

The Code 3 DVD by Scorpio East comes with the standard offerings like scene selections, and contain special features like the 1min 55s theatrical trailer, as well as the Making Of, with both English and Mandarin subtitles. containing interviews with the principle cast, Kelvin Tong the writer-director, and Daniel Yun, executive producer.

Running 22 minutes, there's a decent amount of information revealed on the art direction, and some behind the scenes look during shooting, where I thought a scene showing the cast having a heck of a time dancing during their break, was hilarious.