Anurse, Yuqin, is hired to take care of an old master, Mr. Lin, who has fallen sick due to the death of his daughter, Lingjuan. Due to Yuqin's resemblance to the dead daughter, she is asked to replace her and to comfort the sick Mr. Lin. Gradually she finds out the cause of the death of the daughter.
In 1949, Maxu Weibang worked for Great Wall Company which, when overseen by Zhang Shankun, was not the classical left studio it later became. At Great Wall he directed AMaid's Bitter Storyaka The Haunted House(1949), his first film upon settling in the territory. AMaid's Bitter Storywas his Hong Kong masterpiece, made with one of the biggest budgets ever given a production at that time (nearly bankrupting Great Wall since it was a box-office disaster). The face and its disfigurement, physical wholeness deformed by spiritual infirmity, madness and role-playing, are all motifs developed to the hilt in AMaid's Bitter Story. Stylistic traits
from Midnight Songare here too: melodramatic songs communicating one's innermost thoughts, Gothic chiaroscuro and art direction utilising a Chinese sensibility, as in the exquisite set of a Chinese mansion with waxing-moon motifs. Maxu's first Hong Kong production was enough to qualify him as a major talent, but he was not always given the chance to develop in his own way or to work consistently in the horror genre.
Stephen Teo