Picture Credit; Netflix
From government producer Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity, Roma) & the inventive staff behind Netflix’s breakout collection Hellbound, Revelations is the brand new mysterious crime thriller from Train to Busan author/director Yeon Sang-ho and writing companion Kyu-Seok Choi. Yeon Sang-ho has beforehand labored on such Netflix tasks because the 2023 movie Jung_e & the 2024 collection Parasyte: The Grey.
Adapted from Yeon & Choi’s 2022 comedian of the identical identify, the story facilities on a lacking individuals case pursued by Detective Lee Yeon-hui (Shin Hyun-been) and Pastor Sung Min-chan (Ryu Jun-yeol), every with their very own set of motives and beliefs.
After encountering a registered intercourse offender at his small native church, Pastor Sung follows him, believing that somebody near him could also be in grave hazard. Detective Lee is aware of firsthand what this man is able to as he was beforehand arrested for kidnapping & torturing her sister earlier than being let off on an madness protection. Driven to the brink by the general public’s assist for his launch, her sister took her personal life.
When a younger girl from Pastor Sung’s church is believed to have been taken by this man and the offender himself has additionally disappeared, Sung & Lee’s story intertwine – Lee combating her guilt and the urge to take her revenge & Sung gripped by divine revelations embarking on a darkish journey to carry down the abductor.
While the movie is stuffed with spiritual imagery & potential interventions from above, Revelations is extra of a story of justifications and motivations for the issues we do. Guilt, indicators from God, “one-eyed monsters” all appearing as coping mechanisms for the unexplained horrors of our universe and the guiding hand main us to a conclusion that satiates our wants.
For Detective Lee, she is haunted – actually & figuratively – by the ghosts of her sister’s passing. She is overwhelmed down by hopelessness & despair as she couldn’t save her throughout and after her horrific ordeal. For Pastor Sung, he must consider his malicious intentions have been guided and accepted by the almighty as a method to cleanse his world of evil and clear the trail for his promotion as religious chief of the huge new church being inbuilt his territory. For Kwon Yang-rae, his perception in a monster that eats & takes his victims is a psychological break that enables him to separate himself from the abuse of his stepfather and his personal atrocities.
At its finest, Revelations weaves these storylines right into a tense procedural that shines a lightweight on how we take care of the ache of our generally tragic realities. With some robust confrontations – each emotional & bodily, the movie has a approach of drawing you in and holding you till the following twist happens.
However, in its lesser moments, the story appears to devolve into over-the-top comedian e-book villainy and cleaning soap opera dramatic aptitude that takes you out of a doubtlessly significant philosophical conflict, delving extra into possession slightly than obsession or rationalization.
Picture: Netflix
While an extremely low bar at this level within the yr, Revelations is among the higher Netflix Original movies of 2025 up to now. However, it has an extended technique to go to succeed in the heights of Director Yeon’s earlier tasks (minus the dreadful Jung_e). Watchable with moments of true depth and emotional introspection is probably the most you possibly can anticipate from this South Korean crime thriller.
Watch Revelations If You Liked
- Hellbound
- True Detective
- Train to Busan
- Peninsula
- Parasyte: The Grey
MVP of Revelations
Shin Min-jae as Kwon Yang-rae
When you’re referred to as upon to be the satan, you carry the satan out. That is precisely what Shin Min-jae does because the smiling, sarcastic, strategic, and generally slack-jawed serial offender. His dopey & dumpy demeanor lull you right into a false sense of safety till he’s backed right into a nook. Bloodied, tied up, gun in his face … Kwon all the time appears to know simply what to say to get the ability again on his facet. While he could not have a signature energy that may elevate him to iconic villain stature, don’t inform me you received’t bear in mind his battered, cockeyed face singing church hymns with a dead-eyed stare. As the children say, Shin bought the project.
With echoes of his intense genre-heavy previous and his previous musings on morality & trauma, director Yeon largely succeeds with Revelations as an engrossing but flawed tapestry of grief, perception, and the justifications we inform ourselves to maneuver ahead in our chosen paths.