We’re back with a new film review, this time we’re looking at the 2019 film ‘Svaha: The Sixth Finger’. This religious thriller really had me do a double take. I watched it a year or two ago and recently rewatched it because I saw it was on Netflix.
‘Svaha: The Sixth Finger’ was written and directed by Jang Jae-hyun. The film won awards for Best Art Design and Best Lighting at the Daejong Film Awards. It won Best Music at the Blue Dragon Film Awards and actress Lee Jae-In won Best New Actress at the BaekSang Awards.
Plot
Our story has a variety of characters. Pastor Park is played by Lee Jung-Jae who you’ll know from ‘Squid Game’. He works on exposing false religious organizations who scam their followers. He discovers a new cult called Deer Mount and tries to discover what’s going on behind the scenes. David Lee, who was also in ‘Save Me’ helps him.
There’s also Police Captain Hwang played by Jung Jin-Young. He takes the lead on a murder case. While following the evidence he is led to Deer Mount as well.
Geum-Hwa, played by Lee Jae-In, is the most mysterious character. Her home situation is rather depressing and there’s something lurking behind closed doors.
The beginning of the film is quite confusing, it’s quite hard to figure out what is what or even where the story is goig. The jump scares are kept to a minimum, though there’s some here and there. The spooky children on the ceiling gave me CHILLS. The motivations behind some characters are quite questionable. It isn’t until the last half hour that you really get to understand why some characters are doing what they’re doing.
The interesting thing though is that you get to learn quite a bit about Buddhist scripture. You learn more about Deer Mount together with Pastor Park who is piecing everything together.
Overall
It is an intriguing story that will keep you at the edge of your seat for its entire runtime. You do have to enjoy complicated thrillers though.
The acting work is really good and helped create a tense, dark world. The music really helped with the world building as well. I liked that the film ended on such a bittersweet note.
Watch the trailer below.
