MovieChat Forums > The Maid (2005) Discussion > why does everybody have to hate this mov...

why does everybody have to hate this movie?


Okay, as a Singaporean, I'm by nature, defensive and extra protective, like a mother hen, of all things 'made in S'pore', and am naturally upset that this film had drawn quite a negative response from the audience despite it farin' well at the box office. I was pretty excited when I heard about Singapore going to have it's very first decent horror flick on the big screen, make on a reasonably impressive budget, and went ahead with the rest of the curious crowd to see it, which true to what it promised, to be a shocking and scary piece, I was intensely spooked most of the time. Despite it not being perfect, and havin' areas to work and improve on, it was consider being relatively well done for being a first attempt on a director whose genre of film making wasn't horror and having to apply the 'horror' concept to a very 'un-horror' setting such as Singapore. Do give it a chance and not be so negative about it. It seriously isn't that bad. In fact, its pretty good, and can be even much better if given more time to work on various issues. The acting wasn't exactly world class acting but everyone put in their best to look convincing and the effort was admirable, if nothing to gawk at. Do go see this film if U haven't, and do see it again if U have, for its worth the second go. :)

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Like it's quite lame.... The story's horrible... The only thing I like about the movie was a shot of Rosa and those burnt papers swirling around her... Mind you I'm a Filipino and should be supporting Miss de Rossi... but still it wasn't palatable....

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The movie is lame, even for a Singaporean. If you don't be honest then all Singapore films will end up being like "The Maid" and would not improve. I have praised I Not Stupid 1 & 2 with reservations, but movies like The Maid are quite embarassing...imagine telling a US friend how good it is and then get "rolls eyes" reaction after they watch it...

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As a Singaporean now resident in the UK, my main purpose in watching this film was to see how Singapore would be presented to the viewer - the plot was almost an incidental consideration; but I was actually pleasantly surprised by this effort. Maybe I had low expectations to begin with!

Sure, the plot 'borrowed' a lot from other films, but that in itself is no bad thing especially if what is borrowed is adapted effectively. The test in this case was: did anyone see the final 'twist' coming? I certainly did not, and the moment of realisation was as fresh and as prickly as the denoument in The Sixth Sense.

There is no point in trying to analyse the flaws in the story - like how come the ghosts are sometimes physically tangible and sometimes not. Take them as read, as part of the unfathomable laws of the undead. Reason and physics cannot explain everything in a ghost story!

Overall I thought it was the technical execution more than the plotting that let it down - the editing needed to be tighter and the music score was amatuerish. Certainly, by international standards, the film does not fare so well in terms of production values; but that does not mean to say that the film is not valid or entertaining in its own right. The are far worse films that have come out for 10x the $1.5m budget.

The international audience appeal in fact will be most compromised by the choice to present the film in typical pigeon-English/Chinese language. While it made the whole experience authentic to me, my English friends were hopelessly lost and had to resort to the English subtitles.

But why should a film's success be gauged by international acclaim? Singapore box office receipts alone have proclaimed its popularity, and the film is in every way eons ahead of that other local hit, Bugis Street.

Perhaps more than anything else this highlights yet again that local films are best made for local audiences.





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Even if they are made for a local audience, foreigners will catch a movie when it has artistic or cultural merit on its own. This movie has some cultural merit, but it doesn't have enough creative juice to make it a successful 'genre' sort of movie. I hate to junk this after seeing good things like production value and cinematography in it, but the script is a major let-down, though the direction is competent, the jarring music and sound effects is irritating and superfluous to say the least. Why don't they like paste a tag saying "this is a ghost movie" instead of playing those tiresome grating sounds over and over again. And then, of course there're lots of incomprehensible plotholes which I won't reveal to the non-suspecting viewers.

HK has been making ghost movies like this from much less money. This proves one thing at least, Singapore lacks truly world-class scriptwriters. Those MediaCorp writers can do repetitive subpar melodramas but when it comes to the big screen and 120 min of screen time, you better know what you are doing.

I have high hopes for this movie, but at S$1.5 million, it's a major disappointment. It moved Kelvin Tong a few notches down my estimate - I seriously won't think highly of people who steal not one but half dozen of plotlines from other movies and then proceed to call them original production.

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This movie is no where near as bad as most people are making it out to be. I think it was a bit confusing and poorly written in some spots, terribly derivative of other movies in spots.
But if you look at it in relation to all Asian horror films, it's certainly NOT in the bottom third. Ringu 2, anyone? Cello? Mail? Face? Nightmare? All of those sucked hardcore. I can't help but think that some people are just hating on Singapore for some reason.

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Not seen it yet but 'Darkside' magazine gave it an amazing review, and those guys really know their horror, So I'm going to ignore the negative opinions on here and find out for myself - hopefully I won't be dissapointed.

Hunter S Thompson R.I.P, we'll never see your like again

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I liked it. It didn't scare me as much as I thought it would, but it made me want to read more about Ghost Month and other Chinese folklore so I thought it was money well spent. I thought the concept of the movie was pretty neat even if the execution of it wasn't completely superb.

My only complaint would be that the English spoken was sometimes hard to understand because for some reason (and this could have just been my TV) the English was not as loud as the Mandarin. Therefore there were certain parts that I couldn't understand because it was not loud enough.

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The movie was good for what it was intending to do. Scare you.
I was watching this thing on my portable dvd player in broad daylight and jumped several times because of the creepy images and jarring audio.

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Maybe they hated it because it sucked?
Sorry but this movie was laaame, I wouldn't take it as a shot on national pride. I bet that there are a few filmakers from Singapore that could put together 10 times the scares and chills but can't get the financing, don't have the right connections, etc.

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Societyrain, I don't feel anyone was knocking Singapore.

I think you're right though, it needs more work. If this is just the start of Singapore Ghost Horror, it's not a 'bad' start.

Though I'll be devil's advocate and ask, if it was supposed to be Singapore Horror, why didn't they have it set there? Unless I misunderstood, the Maid was from Singapore, and left for China (even if it was really just a location in Singapore).

I'm sure Singapore has a vast history of interesting ghost stories, or maybe they could have gone with psychological horror or something?

My complaint is with the audio, it wasn't even. It was very hard at times to hear them when the stopped speaking one language and started another. It sounded mumbled in both though. And at times, I'm not sure if it was intentional, but it seemed like the audio was non-existant all together.

The acting was fair. Though as far as the script went, to me, it came off all over the place, or non exisitant. I'm not sure if that was intentional either.

I have to say though I knew pretty early on in the movie the main suprise. Though I thought the very end was a nice twist, that made up for the fact that I knew so early on. And I liked the use of colours too.

I liked it enough to suggest someone see it at least once, because it wasn't awful. And it had at least 2 good twists.

The all time worst forgein horror film I've ever seen that made me laugh myself silly was "The Fog" From India. I have NO clue how anyone in thier right, or left mind thought that was scarey.

So compared to that film, The Maid is pretty darn good!

I think though when I saw this, I was expecting something really different. Something more like 49 Days [Sai Chiu 2006] Hong Kong or The Devil's Backbone [El Espinazo del Diablo 2001] Spain. Both of which I consider superior to it, and I'd hoped it was going to delve more into the supersitions and customs.

I felt they let the viewer down in that aspect.
Love, Grace & Peace, Gunner


Preping left over Halloween Voodoo effigies of FX's 'The Shield' writers ready to poke in peculiarly sensitive taboo areas if they decide to pass on giving David Rees Snell "Strike Team Det. Ronnie Gardocki" a bigger role this season

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You did misunderstand; the maid was from the Philippines and the movie takes place in Singapore, where Rosa went to be a maid. They do explicitly say this (plus the maid is named 'Rosa' which is a name of Spanish origin and she is Catholic; these details are what made me guess her origins before they actually stated it). Maybe you were confused because the family was very Chinese, and did Chinese opera?

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Well, I don't know if we HAVE to hate this movie, but personally, I really enjoyed it. Just like most Asian flicks out there, I appreciated it a lot and it was nice to see something from Singapore, since I had never seen any other Singaporean movies before.
I thought it was really dark, atmospheric and even though it wasn't exactly the most frightening horror movie in the world, it really does have a decent share of good scare over here and over there. No bashing from me at least Hope Singapore makes more horror movies like "The Maid".

"Christ Eating An Empanada!!!"
S. Claus

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In Singapore, the required age to be a maid is 21 years old. But the maid in the movie is only 18. How can she be a maid when she's 18?? It's not legal.

Yi ba gei in slap guo qu

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