Revelations spoilers follow.
The fantasy elements often featured in the work of Korean auteur Yeon Sang-ho are usually quite straight-forward, even if the themes he tackles are not.
The zombies in Train to Busan, the superpowers in Psychokinesis, even the judgey demons in Hellbound are all very real in the worlds that Yeon creates. But for his latest Netflix venture, the darkness is rooted much more in real life, even if it does touch upon the divine.
Revelations follows the twists and turns of a missing-person case which is investigated in very different ways by a pastor, Sung Min-chan (Ryu Jun-yeol), and a detective named Lee Yeon-hui (Shin Hyun-bin). Each is driven by their beliefs to punish the man responsible, an ex-convict called Kwon Yang-rae (Shin Min-jae), who kidnapped and tortured Yeon-hui’s younger sister Yeon-ju years earlier.
Yeon-ju escaped and Yang-rae was caught, but the judge granted him leniency due to the abuse he suffered as a child. Unable to cope with the trauma, Yeon-ju later died, which spurred Yeon-hui on to complete her police training and seek revenge against Yang-rae for the death of her sister.
Pastor Min-chan doesn't know any of that when Yang-rae wanders into his church one day, so he tries and fails to enlist the ex-convict as a member of his parish. From that point on, things just get worse as Min-chan discovers his wife is cheating on him and that he's also losing out on a role at a fancy new church that's being built nearby.
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A misunderstanding over the apparent abduction of Min-chan's daughter leads to a violent confrontation between him and Yang-rae where the pair fight on a deserted country road. Yang-rae hits his head on a rock during their scuffle, so Min-chan assumes the worst and proceeds to throw his body off a cliff nearby to cover up his involvement in the man's death.
What looks like a holy vision that appears before the pastor in that moment confirms to him that he's done the right thing. How convenient! But it turns out Yang-rae is actually alive, after all, so he crawls off to an assisted living home nearby.
And so the nightmare continues, but how? Join us here at Digital Spy as we break down the ending of Revelations and the truth behind the One-Eyed Monster.
Revelations ending explained
Through blind luck — or divine intervention, if Min-chan is to be believed — the pastor stumbles across Yang-rae before he can tell the authorities what happened, so he carts him off to where the new rival church is still being built.
To save his own skin, Yang-rae reveals that he's kidnapped another girl, named A-yeong this time, and he's willing to reveal her whereabouts if Min-chan just lets him go to the police.
You'd think a pastor might be keen to save a child, especially one who happens to be a member of his congregation, but Min-chan knows that going to the authorities means that he'll have to turn himself in too. And that's not what God wants, apparently.
While he runs off to hold a candlelit vigil for A-yeong, Yeon-hui tracks Yang-rae down. The plan is to call her colleagues in, but when visions of her dead sister show up demanding vengeance, Yeon-hui considers offing the guy instead. Yang-rae smarmily points out that doing so will result in the loss of another life, just like her sister. That's when Min-chan returns and knocks the detective out.
The pastor has a new holy plan now, which involves shooting Yeon-hui and throwing Yang-rae out to his death. That way, it will look like they killed each other in the struggle, and no one has to know Min-chan was even there.
He doesn't care about saving A-yeong because he genuinely believes that the girl is dead. God wouldn't have directed him towards this plan otherwise. By killing Yang-rae, Min-chan believes that he's preventing future deaths too. Never mind all the murders he's committing now.
Thankfully, Yeon-hui manages to dodge Min-chan just as he goes to shoot her. A fight breaks out, but the detective manages to overpower the pastor, as you might expect. However, Yang-rae isn't as lucky because the chair he's tied to gets tangled up, pulling him over the ledge of the building. Yeon-hui tries to save him, despite what he did to her sister, but she's not strong enough to pull him back up with the chair dragging him down.
Yang-rae falls to his death — good riddance! — but before he splats on the floor below, this monstrous excuse for a human shares one last clue about where A-yeong is being held: "The girl… the one-eyed monster ate her."
As if that wasn't nail-biting enough, Yeon Sang-ho filmed a big portion of this climactic scene in one long take. Except, this isn't actually the end. Because those final words have still left us wondering:
Who or what is the One-Eyed Monster?
Whether the one-eyed monster represents Yang-rae's abusive step-father or Yang-rae himself, it's almost certain that this vision he talks of isn't actually a monster. Not in the fantastical sense. Rather, it's the cumulation of trauma that Yang-rae has endured throughout his life, which he keeps seeing in an oculus window, of all places.
Every time he sees this specific design feature, Yang-rae is triggered into committing more horrific acts. There was a window like this in the house where he was abused as a child, which is where this all stems from, kicking off again every time he sees one in his adult life.
Yeon-hui’s sister lived in an apartment where the same type of oculus window could be found, shaped like a monstrous eye, and another marks the building where he imprisoned A-yeong before his death.
Yeon-hui learns more about this with help from the therapist who worked with Yang-rae. But she doesn't connect that with A-yeong's current location until her father conveniently calls at that moment, complaining about a "one-eyed thing" in the house he's remodelling.
With that, Yeon-hui does finally connect the dots and — using police resources — she finds the building where A-yeong has been held prisoner, just as it's about to be demolished. In doing so, Yeon-hui also makes up for "failing" her sister, saving A-yeong in a way she couldn't do for her own flesh and blood before.
At the end, Yeon-hui visits Min-chan in prison to tell him that he was wrong, that A-yeong was alive, after all, and she still is now (but no thanks to him). The news breaks our pastor as it contradicts this notion that God was directing him in his actions. And that means Min-chan is responsible for what he did, all the horrific sins he committed.
But then, upon returning to his cell, he notices some stains on the wall and sees a visage of Jesus within them. Classic Min-chan. Using a wet cloth, he tries to clean the stain away with tears in his eyes. Does that mean he no longer believes in the divine revelations that were sent his way? Or has his faith doubled down even more?
That's not entirely clear, deliberately so, because Revelations has toyed with this ambiguity throughout, and outright answering this conundrum of faith would undermine the film entirely. Just know that the one-eyed monster doesn't really exist in the same way zombies do in Train to Busan or demons do in Hellbound. Unless it does? Hehe...
After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
