"Cinematically, The Housemaid is deeply claustrophobic, both visually and in terms of plot, increasing in tension as the story darkens, to an almost uncomfortable level. Characters are repeatedly framed with nowhere to escape to, closed in both by physical frames within the house and by the camera frame itself, with the viewpoint routinely moving to keep them "trapped" wherever they are. This technique will be fairly well known to any cinema fan, but its appearance in a film made at a time when Kim Ki-young's contemporaries were mainly known for melodramas filmed using wide (mainly static) shots, makes its use here even more extraordinary." - Paul Quinn, Hangul Celluloid