Svaha: The Sixth Finger

A mystery thriller where Pastor Park, a man who works at exposing suspicious religious groups, faces a mysterious incident where he’s hired to look into the cult group deer mount. At the same time the police are also investigating a corpse of a female whose body is found in a tunnel and the main suspect is a member of the same cult being investigated by Pastor Park. The story first starts when Geumhwa and her twin sister “it” are born. Geumhwa, being born with a deformed leg, lives in a remote village with their grandparents where her twin, who was not supposed to live for long, is kept as a mystery. Throughout most of the film the “it” twin is kept as a mystery and is locked up in a shed in the backyard. Geumhwa seems terrified of their siblings and the grandparents, especially the grandmother asking for forgiveness from the gods because of it. In the town they live in, tensions rise as those around the town find something strange about them. As many mysterious occurrences begin things get more complicated becoming intertwined with various religions, gods, Buddhism, demons and even immortality. All this is occurring while pastor Park delves more into the deer garden cult that leads him onto more bigger secrets.

Principal photography began on November 19, 2017 and wrapped on April 9, 2018.[5] The title Svaha decided when a colleague of director Jang Jae-hyun recommended it. The term is used in Buddhism which memorizes a certain order in Buddhism that then makes “it happen”.

For 90% of the locations shot they had vivid production designs, Despite the cold reaching 20 degrees below zero in some areas. The production team devoted 90% of shooting an entire location of Gangwon-do province with a mountainous area in South Korea. Cinematographer Kim Tae-soo[6] also created blue-based water as a base to create a cool-toned cinematic atmosphere while preserving the cold tones for the season of winter. The camera movements and shooting styles also emphasized expressing the tension that heightens, which later on rises with more close-ups as it reaches the second half.

Although Buddhism and esotericism are the main focus in the film, there are also elements such as Maitreya, Shichuan and references to the Bible as well. For instance, when the twin sisters are born, there’s a cross-reference to brothers  'Esau and Jacob in the bible. Where Jacob for example when born, came out with his twin brother's heel. In the movie, the similarities are when the twin sister considered as "it" survived by eating its twin Geum-hwa's leg. There’s also an instance where Kim Je-Seuk was admired by many religious people for showing the miracle of fire, considering it the motif of Herod the Great, who killed all boys around to stop the birth of Jesus. Similar to Kim Je-seuk who did the same but instead killed girls born in the year 99 in Yeongwol to get rid of his enemy who could possibly kill him.

The film released on February 20, 2019, attracted 190,000 audiences on the first day and won #1 box office. On the second day, it exceeded 2 million views, in total bringing in around 2.19 million audience. Thus bringing in cumulative sales of 20,007,508,194 won[7] which is around  16,481,474.98 U.S dollars. Actor Jeong Dong-hwan, played the role of Kim Je-seok who after gaining enlightenment, his body never grows old. But the film faced some backlash as they used a photo of Independence activist Na-Cheo[8] l with the character Kim Je-seok face instead and was synthesized as a pseudo-bishop who was respected by the public. When in reality Na-Cheol was an independence activist known as the godfather of the anti-Japanese independence movement founded in Daejong Gyo, before the National Order of Merit was added. There were also controversies that into their official trailer of 30 seconds could possibly “damage” ambassadors. There was also a protest from Sincheonji, a Christian movement and church of Jesus, over some scenes from the trailer. They stated concerns over the 30-second trailer as it could damage the group's reputation. But since the film is not aimed at a religion it had nothing to do in the end with the film.[9]

At the 56th Grand Bell Awards, the movie got 8 nominations and won 2 awards. It won for Best Art Direction( for Seo Seong-kyeong) and Best Lighting( for Jeon Young-seok).[10][11]

• Svaha: The Sixth Finger at HanCinema
• Svaha: The Sixth Finger at the Korean Movie Database
• Svaha: The Sixth Finger at Rotten Tomatoes
• https://movie.naver.com/movie/bi/mi/basic.nhn?code=167099#
• https://movie.daum.net/moviedb/main?movieId=115191