Woman of Fire: Kim Ki-Young Recycles Himself

With Woman of Fire (1971), you get a justifiably strong déjà vu feeling as psychosexual auteur Kim Ki-young revisits the exact same territory that he charted so memorably in his landmark movie The Housemaid (1961). But there's something new going on here too as Kim is also laying the groundwork for much of his wildly phantasmagorical work of the 1970s, freaky films like Insect Woman (1972), Promise of the Flesh (1975), and Killer Butterfly (1978). Sure, we're back to a housemaid (Youn Yuh-jung) who gets wrapped up in a perverse love triangle with a composer (Won Namkoong) and his wife (Jeon Gye-hyeon) but we're also getting a glimpse of things to come as Kim would go on to explore the eternally demented battle of the sexes with quite a few variations.

None of it's subtle in Woman of Fire. This country girl who becomes a domestic definitely has a screw loose — perhaps caused by being sexually attacked before heading to the city. The tendency of a few characters to laugh maniacally creates a feeling that the world, and not just a few outcasts, have gone certifiably insane. You might be frustrated or delighted by how much Woman of Fire has in common with The Housemaid. As for me, I experienced both reactions. Ultimately, this over-the-top melodrama might be the quintessence of Kim: the look, the vibe, the excesses, the creepy score, the tawdry tale. Which doesn't make it his best. It simply means that it's not the worst.

Awards: For her turn as the deranged servant who ends up ruling the roost, Youn Yuh-jung won top honors as Best Actress at Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival.