The Maid

The Maid
Official film poster
Directed by	Kelvin Tong
Produced by	Chan Pui Yin Seah Saw Yam Titus Ho
Written by	Kelvin Tong
Starring	Alessandra de Rossi Chen Shu Cheng Hong Hui Fang Benny Soh
Music by	Alex Oh Joe Ng
Cinematography	Lucas Jodogne
Editing by	Lawrence Ang Low Hwee Ling
Distributed by	MediaCorp Raintree Pictures Fortissimo Films Tartan Films
Release date(s)	18 August 2005 12 September 2006
Running time	93 min.
Country	Singapore
Language	English, Teochew, Tagalog, Filipino

The Maid is a 2005 Singaporean horror film telling of a maid recently arriving from the Philippines. She has to acclimate herself to the customs of the Chinese Ghost Month, during which she struggles with supernatural forces. The maid is employed by a Teochew opera family, a family with many secrets, who give her a place to stay in their dilapidated shophouse.

The film broke the box office record in Singapore for the horror genre, making S$700,000 on its opening weekend.

It won the European Fantastic Film Festival Federation (EFFFF) Asian Film Award at the 10th Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan). The EFFFF Asian Film Award is a prize awarded to the best Asian film of the year by the federation, of which PiFan is a supporting member.

It stars Alessandra de Rossi, Hong Huifang, Benny Soh, Guan Zhenwei and Chen Shucheng, a veteran actor-compere.

Plot

During the Chinese Seventh Month, the gates of hell supposedly open and spirits are let loose upon an unsuspecting world. Hailing from a small village in the Philippines, 18-year-old Rosa Dimaano arrives in Singapore on the first day of the Seventh Month to work as a domestic maid. She urgently needs money to save her ill brother back home. Her employers, the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Teo, appear kindhearted. Their mentally-handicapped son Ah Soon also takes to Rosa immediately.

Between cleaning house and helping the Teos out at their Teochew opera workplace, things start going amiss. Rosa glimpses strange apparitions at night. She finds out that there was a maid two years before her called Esther. She apparently has the same good relationship with Ah Soon as she does. That is when Rosa begins to suspect things are not as they are.

As she explores around some of the shady areas of the house, she discovers the ashes of Esther, the previous maid hidden in a jar and through a ghostly vision that Esther's spirit shows her realizes that Esther was playing with Ah Soon in his room two years ago on that same day of the Ghost Festival when he suddenly, though unintentionally, molested her on the bed. When the parents witnessed this, they feared that Esther might lawsuit the family so Mr. Teo cowardly beat her to the ground and poured oil all over her before setting her on fire.

Frightened by the vision, Esther tries to escape when she is suddenly confronted by Ah Soon. She quickly finds out that Ah Soon is also a ghost himself when she tries to stab him only to realize that the man would not showa scar or any visible wound. In the past, Ah Soon committed suicide shortly after the death of Esther but instead of passing to the afterlife, he chose to return to the house of the Teo to find the spirit of Esther, whom he was in love with. From behind her, Mr. Teo knocks Esther unconscious and ties her up. When Esther awakens, she is told by Mrs. Teo that the Teo family has longed believen that ghosts can also marry and their whole intention for inviting her to Singapore was to sacrifice her so that she would be wed to their dead son. But when Mr. Teo tries to hang Rosa, Ah Soon remembers the way his father's brutally murdered Esther and tells his parents that he does not want to see anymore death in the house.

Accidentally, Ah Soon pushes Mr. Teo into an ancestor worshipper table containing oils and a candle and the oil aignites on Mr. Teo, burning him to death. When Rosa manages to break free in a panick, Mrs. Teo picks up a knife and tries to finish what her husband had started. However, as soon as Rosa dashes out of the house and crosses the road, Mrs. Teo is hit by a passing vehicle, killing her in an instant while Rosa successfully passed to the other side unharm.

In the final sequence, Rosa is seen heading to the airport on the last day of July when the gate is closing. She takes with her a pot containing Esther's ashes as she enters the airport while the ghosts of the Teo family watches her disappear beyond the doors.

External links

• Scifi.com Review
• The Maid at the Internet Movie Database
• The Maid at Allmovie
• Official Website

v • d • e Cinema of Singapore Actors · Films A-Z · Films by year · Directors · Screenwriters · Producers · Films by gross takings · Films set in Singapore · Cinemas · Festivals · Studios

((Category;Supernatural horror films))