kviff.com
News
Festival Guide
  • Tickets and Festival Pass
  • Accommodations
  • Transportation
  • Festival cinemas
  • No Barriers project
  • Kids at the festival
  • Festival Shop
Program
  • Catalogue of films
  • Accompanying programme
  • Archive of films
  • Audience award
  • KVIFF Talks
  • Film Entry
Film Industry
  • Industry accreditation
  • Film Industry at KVIFF
  • Industry Days Programme
  • KVIFF Eastern Promises
  • KVIFF Talents
Press
  • Press accreditation
  • Press Service
  • For download
  • Press releases
  • Photogallery
  • Videogallery
About the festival
  • Festival description
  • Programme sections
  • Awards
  • History
  • We support non-profits
  • Photogallery
  • Partners
  • Why We Support the Festival
  • Contacts
CZ
Sign in
Film Archive

Birdcage Inn

Kim Ki-duk 2002 / Parandaemun / South Korea 1998

A young woman comes to a seaside hotel to service the occasional nighttime customer. Gradually, however, she comes into conflict with the hotel owner’s daughter, a college student who has contempt for the young woman and her profession. What would have to happen for them to change places for one evening?

Birdcage Inn

Synopsis

A young woman carrying a small bag and a large reproduction of an Egon Schiele nude comes to a seaside hotel located in a small street. She has been hired to pleasure the hotel’s occasional nighttime customer, using her body to earn a living for herself and the hotel owner’s family. The father and son do not hesitate to avail themselves of her services but this merely intensifies the disdain she receives from the hotel owner’s daughter, a young woman her own age. The daughter hates the prostitute as well as her parents’ means of making money, and she hides their lifestyle from her fiancé. Although he suspects nothing, even he eventually spends a night in the prostitute’s arms. At first the incident merely worsens the girls’ relationship, but in the end it becomes the pivotal moment initiating their gradual rapprochement; the daughter discovers the power of sexuality and her hatred gives way to new understanding. And so one night the young women decide to change places. . . . The surf pounding the nearby shore mirrors the rhythm of the narration.

About the film

100 min / Black & white, 35 mm

Director Kim Ki-duk / Screenplay Kim Ki-duk / Dir. of Photography Seo Jeong-min / Music Lee Mun-hee / Editor Ko Im-pyo / Producer Kwon Ki-yung / Production Boogui Cinema / Cast Lee Ji-eun, Lee Hye-eun, Ahn Jae-mo

Other partners
Newsletter

First-hand brews throughout the year.
Be among the first to learn about upcoming events and other news. We only send the newsletter when we have something to say.

Follow us on the web:

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
is part of the KVIFF Group family, which covers other projects as well:

© 2025 KVIFF GROUP

Rules for Visitors / Website visitors privacy policy / GTC / Personal Data Protection / Rules for Claim / Rules and Regulations / Contacts