Svaha: The Sixth Finger

Svaha: The Sixth Finger (Korean: 사바하; RR: Sabaha) is a 2019 South Korean mystery thriller film directed by Jang Jae-hyun. The cast includes Lee Jung-jae, Park Jeong-min, Lee Jae-in, Jung Jin-young, Jin Seon-kyu, and Lee David. In its opening week, the film topped the box office with 840,000 ticket sales and drew 1.18 million viewers within five days. The story revolves around a mystery tied to a Buddhist sect and raises broader questions about faith.

The plot begins in 1999 with the birth of Lee Geum-hwa and her twin sister. The sister fed on Geum-hwa’s leg in the womb, leaving Geum-hwa with a deformed leg. The sister, severely deformed and called “the thing,” was not expected to survive and was never registered at birth. Their mother died shortly after, and their father soon committed suicide. In the present, Geum-hwa lives with her grandparents in a remote village, where they raise dogs. The sister, who survived, is kept hidden in a locked shed in the backyard. When locals and a mudang investigate the farm due to strange behavior in the livestock, snakes emerge from the shed and bite them.

Meanwhile, Pastor Park Ung-jae, a Protestant minister who investigates cults and frauds for publicity and donations rather than leading a congregation, is hired to look into a mysterious group called Dongbanggyo, or the “Deer Mountain Sect,” operating in Gangwon-do. His assistant Joseph has infiltrated the group but found nothing unusual. They meet at a convenience store near a Dongbanggyo branch in Taebaek. Joseph notes that the group seems like an esoteric Buddhist sect with ample funding, but practitioners worship “Generals” instead of the Buddha or a bodhisattva. Elsewhere, police investigate a girl’s body found entombed in concrete. Chief Hwang determines she was recently murdered and was likely a middle-schooler.

Pastor Park meets with senior Buddhist monks about Dongbanggyo. Initially skeptical, Monk Hae-an, a junior of Park, suggests being proactive. After the meeting, Hae-an asks for Park’s dossier, especially a copy of Dongbanggyo’s scripture, to see if it uses unapproved texts. That night, a man named Gwangmok visits his friend Kim Cheol-jin, a construction truck driver who admits he has failed “Father.” Kim says dead children visit him at night and worries something went wrong.