Warning: Spoilers ahead for Revelations
There’s a nail-biting scene in the third act of Netflix’s Korean-language thriller Revelations that is filmed entirely in one shot. The protagonist, pastor Sung Min-chan (Reply 1988 and Alienoid star Ryu Jun-yeol) has ex-convict Kwon Yang-rae (Shin Min-jae) and detective Lee Yeon-hui (Shin Hyun-bin) tied up on a top floor of a building project that will one day be a mega-church. Convinced that he is being directed by God to punish Yang-rae for the presumed death of church girl A-yeong, Min-chan plans to kill the man and frame Yeon-hui for the murder.
The psychological thriller, out on March 21, reaches a boiling point in this moment, and one that would be hard to predict at the film’s start, which sees Min-chan as a mild-mannered pastor trying his best to offer solace and guidance to his dwindling flock of churchgoers. Director Yeon Sang-ho knew he had to get the scene just right. “When we were creating the storyboard, I thought that we might have to divide it into different cuts,” Yeon told TIME, through an interpreter. “But, as we were filming, I thought, this is a really climactic scene for the trio, and I need something very special.” The cast and crew rehearsed twice before going for the “one scene, one cut” take. “As we were having more takes, we could feel that our chemistry is getting better and better, and I could feel the liveliness and realness of the scene.” Yeon said he is “very satisfied” with how it turned out.
The scene is a linchpin moment for Revelations, which follows three characters who derive deeper meaning from the signs and symbols they see in the world, which drives them to justify their own, sometimes horrific, actions. For pastor Min-chan, a lightning strike illuminating a cross in a rock face is God telling him to punish Yang-rae. For Yang-rae, seeing a window shaped like the one that haunted him in the house where he was abused as a child convinces him he must kidnap again. For Yeon-hui, visions of her dead sister push her to catch Yang-rae before he can hurt someone.
“I think I’m a person who’s drawn to the fragility of people and how that fragility leads to downfall,” says Yeon, who has explored similar themes in projects like Netflix series Hellbound and 2013 animated feature film The Fake.
The idea for Revelations came out of a discussion Yeon and frequent collaborator Choi Gyu-seok were having while breaking the story for Hellbound Season 2. “We came across this term called pareidolia, which means that our brain tries to make sense of things that are actually random, and make it look like something that we could believe in,” explains Yeon. The condition, which is outlined by Yang-rae’s psychologist in Revelations, often manifests as people literally seeing things, such as a shape in the outline of a cloud, and then assigning a meaningful interpretation to it.
“It’s something that only humans do, and I think it’s like a tendency that all of us have,” says Yeon. “So I thought that was very intriguing, and I wanted to work on that subject.” The storytellers couldn’t fit it into Hellbound, which depicts a world in which cosmic creatures conclusively exist, so they wrote a 2022 comic around the idea. That comic would serve as the source material for Revelations. Let’s break down how the human tendency comes to an unpredictable conclusion in Revelations, and what it all means.
What happened to Yeon-hui’s sister?
Yeon-hui’s younger sister, Yeon-ju, was kidnapped and tortured by Yang-rae years before the start of the film. Though she eventually escaped, the trauma led to her death by suicide. Yeon-hui, who was training to be a police detective at the time, blames herself for Yeon-ju’s death. Though she spoke to her sister on the phone while she was being held, she did not put the pieces together in time. Yeon-ju thought Yeon-hui would come for her, but she never did.
When Yang-rae is sentenced, the details of the severe abuse he suffered as a child grant him sympathy from the judge. In a flashback to the trial, we see Yeon-hui shout at Yang-rae’s therapist for giving psychological context to Yang-rae’s actions, seemingly at the cost of her sister’s mental wellbeing. After Yeon-ju’s death and Yang-rae’s release from prison, Yeon-hui can’t let go of her guilt or her desire to find greater justice for her sister’s suffering. That’s why the beginning of the film finds her following Yang-rae.
Does Min-chan kill Yang-rae?
Min-chan’s murderous actions eventually lead to Yang-rae’s death, but not right away. When we first meet Min-chan, he does not seem capable of murder. When Yang-rae wanders into his church and Min-chan notices the man is wearing an ankle monitor, he still welcomes him. Yes, he is desperate for patrons, but he also seems to believe that God’s salvation can extend to anyone, no matter their crime. But then Min-chan has a very bad day—he finds out his wife is cheating on him and that he is not the first choice to be the pastor at the new, flashy church being built in his neighborhood—and things change.
The first violent confrontation between Min-chan and Yang-rae happens relatively early in the film. After getting a call from his wife that their daughter has been picked up from daycare by a strange man, Min-chan, who has grown suspicious of Yang-rae, follows him to a deserted country road, convinced that the ex-convict has kidnapped his daughter. When Yang-rae stops his truck to ask why the pastor is following him, Min-chan notices that Yang-rae’s ankle monitor is missing, prompting Yang-rae to attack him.
Min-chan fights back in self-defense, and Yang-rae ends up falling down a hill and hitting his head on a rock. Fearing he has killed Yang-rae and not wanting to deal with the consequences, Min-chan pushes Yang-rae’s body into a nearby ravine. Min-chan almost immediately justifies the decision, using symbols he sees in the world around him as evidence that God is leading him to take these actions. His daughter, it turns out, is fine.
Later, it is revealed that Yang-rae somehow survived the rock to the head and the fall from the cliff. Though seriously injured, he makes his way to a nearby assisted living home. Unfortunately for Yang-rae, the institution is regularly visited by a group of pastors’ wives, including Min-chan’s. When Min-chan drops his wife off at the facility, he finds and kidnaps Yang-rae, and brings him to the building site of the new church. “This isn’t my will. It’s all God’s will,” Min-chan tells the bleeding Yang-rae, as he wheels him away.
In an attempt to save his own life, Yang-rae tells Min-chan that he will reveal where A-yeong, the girl he has kidnapped, is being held—but only if Min-chan calls the police. Min-chan hesitates because this would also mean turning himself in for the crimes he has committed against Yang-rae. He delays the decision and, leaving behind a bound Yang-rae, goes to lead a candlelight prayer for A-yeong back at the church.
This pause gives Yeon-hui time to put the pieces together, and to track Yang-rae and Min-chan to the site of the new church. She arrives before Min-chan returns and has a chance to call her police colleagues, but a vision of her dead sister tries to convince Yeon-hui to kill Yang-rae herself. Yang-rae pleads his case by telling Yeon-hui what he told Min-chan: if she kills him, they will never find A-yeong. “There are so many lunatics in this neighborhood,” Yang-rae tells Yeon-hui when she has trouble making the decision.
Before Yeon-hui can act, Min-chan returns and knocks her out. When Yeon-hui awakes, Min-chan outlines his plan: he will shoot Yeon-hui, and then push Yang-rae from the building to his death. It will look like Yang-rae killed Yeon-hui in a scuffle and then jumped. Min-chan is convinced that A-yeong is dead and that Yang-rae killed her. “Otherwise, I would never have received the revelation to kill him,” he screams at a desperate Yeon-hui. Convinced that Yang-rae is the devil and, if he doesn’t kill him, there will be more victims, Min-chan is using the excuse of divine revelation to justify his past and future actions.
When Min-chan goes to shoot Yeon-hui, she manages to dodge it and the two scuffle. With the help of Yang-rae, who kicks a handsaw over to Yeon-hui, the detective overpowers the pastor and handcuffs him to a pipe. However, in the fight, the chair Yang-rae is tied to gets tangled up in some building materials. When the materials go over the ledge of the building, Yang-rae goes with them. Yeon-hui rushes to save him, holding onto the duct tape bound around his ankles, but she does not have the strength to hold on forever or to pull him up. Before Yang-rae falls to his death, he gives Yeon-hui a clue about where A-yeong is being held: “The girl… the one-eyed monster ate her.”
Who is the One-Eyed Monster?
Yang-rae’s therapist believes that the one-eyed monster could symbolize Yangrae’s step-father or Yang-rae himself. “The monster is deeply connected to his traumatic memories from his childhood,” he tells Yeon-hui. Whatever Yang-rae actually believes the one-eyed monster to be, it is triggered by a specific design feature: an oculus window. The window type was in the house Yang-rae grew up in as a child, when he was abused every day by his step-father. Yeon-hui’s sister had the same kind of window in her apartment, and there is one in the building where A-yeong is being held. It is what triggered Yang-rae to kidnap both of them, as he is pulled back into his trauma-driven delusions.
Does Yeon-hui save A-yeong?
It is only after Yang-rae’s death that the viewers learn definitively that A-yeong is still alive. However, she is tied up in a house marked for demolition. With Yang-rae dead, the police have little to go on. Yeon-hui visits Yang-rae’s therapist to learn more about Yang-rae and the “one-eyed monster.” The therapist helps Yeon-hui work through her guilt around her sister (“You know it’s not your sister, right? It’s just an illusion created by your guilt”), but does not crack the case for her. Instead, Yeon-hui’s father does.
In a well-timed phone call, Yeon-hui’s father happens to mention a “one-eyed thing” as he grumbles about a house remodeling. Yeon-hui figures out that Yang-rae sees the monster in the design feature that was also on his childhood house. Using the combined power of her police department, Yeon-hui manages to find the building where A-yeong is being held and to rescue her before it is demolished. She is able to save A-yeong in a way she was not able to save her sister—and break free her own delusions.
How does Revelations end?
A-yeong is safe, Yang-rae is dead, and Min-chan is in prison for his crimes. In the film’s final sequence, we see Yeon-hui visit Min-chan to tell him that A-yeong is alive and well. The news seems to break Min-chan’s delusion that everything he did was directed by God. However, when he returns to his cell, he still sees a visage of Jesus in the stains of his wall. He wets a cloth and works to remove it, tears in his eyes. It is unclear what Min-chan’s exact motivation is in this scene, but he seems to feel remorse for his actions. Whether the things Min-chan saw were revelations from God, the devil, or entirely inside his own mind, he does not want to see them anymore.
What does the ending of Revelations mean?
The core message behind Revelations is revealed in the words of the therapist, who tells Yeon-hui: “Most tragedies in life are caused by a combination of circumstances we can’t control. Things like the devil and monsters are created by humans to justify themselves.” Still, Yeon intentionally left the door open for different interpretations that allow for supernatural or cosmic explanation. This was especially true of the first half of the film, which does not reveal if A-yeong is in fact alive or not. “I wanted to plant that question into the minds of the audience and test their beliefs,” he says.
And in a film where questions of religion and faith are central, Yeon adds moments of lucky coincidence, especially the call from Yeon-hui’s father that gives the detective the exact information she needs to save A-yeong in time. “I wanted to let the viewers kind of have that liberty to think of it in their own way,” says Yeon. “And the whole experience of going to a cinema or watching a movie is being able to test your own faith and think of what your ideas are about certain things.”
Yeon says he hopes the themes will resonate with a global audience, despite its Korean cultural specificities. “While Revelations is a crime thriller, it’s a very grounded and realistic story,” says Yeon. “So I thought the localness of it was also very important, like the space where everything happens, which is Korea.” Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón, who serves as an executive producer on the film, assuaged Yeon’s fears that Revelations might be too local for global audiences, Yeon says. “He totally understood the core of the message that I was trying to convey, and he gave me confidence that this is a story that is not just relevant to Korean people, but that it could be relevant to the global audience.”
Revelations is the first time in 10 years Yeon has depicted the world of organized religion as a potential source of downfall, after going there with his animated film The Fake. When asked if return to the world of Revelations, or more broadly, the theme of religion in his work, Yeon says he might have to wait another 10 years to build up the material. “In order to add a new perspective, it requires time, so time has to pass for that.”
