I'm personally not a big fan of this newer wave of Asian ghost-films, but I found THE MAID to be one of the better of the ones that I've seen. The storyline was decent (though somewhat "flawed" as other reviewers have noted), and was rife with "jump-scares" as opposed to depth - but considering I was expecting a straight-up RINGU/JU-ON rip-off, I'd say I was pleasantly surprised...
Rosa is a Filipino girl who comes to work as a maid (where she does NO cleaning...maybe "maid" has some other meaning over there...) for a couple in Singapore. Unfortunately, her trip abroad coincides with a Chinese "holiday" where the gates of hell are opened once a year and spirits are roaming the land in strict accordance to certain rituals. Rosa begins seeing ghosts and the story takes a more coherent turn when we find that some of them are related to her hosts and some experiences that took place prior to Rosa's arrival...
As others have noted, THE MAID isn't really breaking any new ground in terms of storyline/concept. There are ideas lifted from other similar films, but at least THE MAID puts them together in the right way for the most part. I found the cinematography to be quite beautiful and the acting seemed on par with what I would expect from this sort of film. Plenty of "startle" moments for those that dig that sort of thing, almost to the point of redundancy - but once everything was said and done, I felt the plot was relatively strong if not 100% original...7/10
Rosa is a Filipino girl who comes to work as a maid (where she does NO cleaning...maybe "maid" has some other meaning over there...) for a couple in Singapore. Unfortunately, her trip abroad coincides with a Chinese "holiday" where the gates of hell are opened once a year and spirits are roaming the land in strict accordance to certain rituals. Rosa begins seeing ghosts and the story takes a more coherent turn when we find that some of them are related to her hosts and some experiences that took place prior to Rosa's arrival...
As others have noted, THE MAID isn't really breaking any new ground in terms of storyline/concept. There are ideas lifted from other similar films, but at least THE MAID puts them together in the right way for the most part. I found the cinematography to be quite beautiful and the acting seemed on par with what I would expect from this sort of film. Plenty of "startle" moments for those that dig that sort of thing, almost to the point of redundancy - but once everything was said and done, I felt the plot was relatively strong if not 100% original...7/10