Birdcage Inn

A small guesthouse by the sea. The family that runs it is barely getting by, so they take in a young woman, Jin-a, who sleeps with customers while the money comes into the house. Hye-mi, the daughter of the family and a university student, is disgusted by her, but living under one roof turns that disgust into something else, and by the end the two women have all but changed places. It was Kim Ki-duk's third film. How he depicts women has been argued over since the day it appeared, and its harshness and provocation are entirely deliberate. Most of the themes he would return to for the rest of his career are already assembled here.