HANOI, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- Oscar-winning screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher will write the screenplay for the U.S. remake of the Vietnamese horror flick "Co Hau Gai" (The Housemaid), Vietnam News Agency reported on Monday.

The movie is set in 1953 during a war. The story follows an orphaned country girl who is hired as a housemaid at a haunted French rubber plantation. She unexpectedly falls in love with the plantation's owner and awakens the vengeful ghost of his dead wife.

Vietnamese-American director Derek Nguyen, who directed the Vietnamese version, said, "When writing the original script for The Housemaid, I became aware of the many parallels between the lives of Vietnamese-indentured servants during the French colonial period and African American slaves in the American South. It's an honor to have a celebrated screenwriter such as Geoffrey Fletcher shed light on the horrors of brutal injustice in a new version that will not only entertain but provoke thought."

The original "Co Hau Gai" was released in Vietnam in 2016. It won the Silver Lotus award in the best movie category of the 20th Vietnam Film Festival in 2017.?