Woman of Fire is a 1971 South Korean film directed by Kim Ki-young. This was the second film in Kim's Housemaid trilogy followed by Woman of Fire '82. The film is a remake of the classical The Housemaid.

Plot

In South Korea, a man named Dong-sik and a woman named Myeong-ja are found dead near a poultry farm with multiple stab wounds. The police assume it is a robbery but also find Jeong-suk, the wife of Dong-sik as a person of interest. While a robber is suspected (owing to a confession from a crazed man), attention soon turns to Jeong-suk, particularly when discrepancies come to light such as a letter apparently from the dead woman. Throughout the film, the story of the two dead people come to light, which involves Myeong-ja having come to work for free at the farm of the family (as run by the wife) while recovering from trauma involving an attacker that had seen her leave her rural roots; unlike the wife, she is comfortable dealing with pests such as rats, with her at one point squashing a rat with her shoe. In fact, she doesn't want a great amount of pay, merely wanting to find a suitable husband. Dong-sik is a songwriter under the constant pressure of female would-be suitors such as Hye-suk, and when Jeong-suk has to go on business, she tasks Myeong-ja to guard him. Push comes to shove when Myeong-ja prevents Hye-suk from making advances on Dong-sik only to find herself in the arms of a drunken rape by him when he mistakes her for Hye-suk. The result is that she becomes pregnant, but when Jeong-suk finds out, she forces her to have an abortion.