줄거리

(KMDb 2위)
한 방직 공장의 음악부 선생 동식(김진규)는 금천에서 일어난 살인사건 기사에 흥미를 보인다. 어느 날 여공 곽선영에게서 연애편지를 받은 동식은 이 사실을 공장 기숙사 사감에게 알리고 선영은 공장을 그만두게 된다. 한편 선영에게 편지를 쓰도록 격려했던 친구 조경희(엄앵란)가 피아노 레슨을 이유로 그의 새 집을 드나들기 시작한다. 새 집을 짓기 위해 무리해 재봉일을 하던 아내의 몸이 쇠약해지자 동식은 경희에게 부탁해 하녀(이은심)를 소개받는다.

A music teacher at a textile factory, Dong-sik (Kim Jin-gyu), becomes interested in a series of murders in Geum-cheon. One day, a woman worker at the factory, Gwak Seon-yeong, gives Dong-sik a love letter. When he tells this to the factory's dormitory supervisor, Seon-yeong quits her job at the factory. On the hand, the friend who encouraged Seon-yeong to write the letter, Jo Gyeong-hui (Eom Aeng-ran), starts to come in and out of his house due to piano lessons. When Dong-sik's wife becomes weak after excessively doing needlework in order to earn money to build a house, Dong-sik asks Gyeong-hui for help, and she introduces a housemaid (Lee Eun-sim) to him. One day, when the pregnant wife goes to her parents' house, Gyeong-hui confesses her love to Dong-sik; however, she is rebuffed and thrown out of the house. The maid who had been secretly watching through the window tempts Dong-sik and they make love. Three months later, the maid is pregnant, and Dong-sik's wife finds out. She persuades the maid and the maid loses her baby as she rolls down the stairs. After this, the maid becomes increasingly ruthless and causes the couple's child, Chang-sun (Ahn Seong-gi), to fall down the stairs and die. The maid threatens to tell the entire story to the factory. To protect her family, Dong-sik's wife sends Dong-sik to the maid's bedroom on the second floor, where Dong-sik drinks poison with the maid to commit suicide. He leaves the maid to die on the stairs, going to his wife to breathe his last breath. The movie then flashes back to the first scene, where Dong-sik and his wife are reading the newspaper. The movie ends with Dong-sik addressing the audience, warning them that this could happen to anybody.