A melodrama about a man who survives an attempted double suicide with a stranger while picnicking with friends. He goes on a cave expedition for a famous archaeologist where he discovers a skeleton several thousand years old. He meets the spirit of the skeleton in a dream, and then becomes romantically involved with the archeologist's daughter.
Direction
Kim Ki-young's operatic visual madness at peak unfiltered.
Production
Cave sets that look expensive and cheap simultaneously.
Acting
Lee Hwa-si's primitive woman—feral, erotic, unforgettable.

Director
Kim Ki-young
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Kim Ki-young made this during his commercial decline, funded partly by his own money after studios rejected the script as 'incomprehensible.'
Part of Kim's unofficial 'insect trilogy'—each film uses bug symbolism to explore female sexuality as something beautiful, dangerous, and ultimately consuming. The butterfly here is less transformation, more trap.
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