Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Writers: Kyu-Seok Choi, Yeon Sang-ho
Stars: Ryu Jun-yeol, Shin Hyeon-bin, Shin Min-jae
Synopsis: A pastor and a detective, driven by their beliefs, pursue a missing person case, with the pastor seeking retribution after a divine revelation identifies the culprit who abducted his son.
Two years after the disappointing JUNG_E, South Korean director Yeon Sang-ho is back with yet another Netflix original title, Revelations, which tackles the subject of religion or, more aptly, divine interventions. Sang-ho became a household name in modern South Korean cinema when his 2016 Zombie flick, Train to Busan, was a massive crossover success, so much so that Hollywood was almost instantly bullish on greenlighting an English-language remake, with Timo Tjahjanto in the director’s chair.
Whether or not it will see the light of day remains to be seen, as we haven’t heard many updates on the status of that remake. However, the best thing to have come out of this international acclaim was for audiences to continue following Sang-ho’s work beyond his Zombie franchise. From the hyper-stimulating Psychokinesis to his terrific television series Hellbound and Parasyte: The Grey, his voice is one of the most exciting in South Korea and in genre cinema as a whole. While his last movie failed to instill the same form of excitement as many had watching Train to Busan, Revelations may well be his best ever.
It could seem like hyperbole for someone to say this, but this critic has been more let down by Sang-ho’s work than enthralled, especially his recent feature film output (Peninsula? Good lord). In Revelations, he takes a relatively simple premise, the disappearance of a young churchgoer, and turns it into a riveting police procedural with some of the most dynamic and spiritually-charged camerawork I’ve seen since John Woo’s 2024 reinterpretation of The Killer.
Of course, Sang-ho isn’t painting a positive portrait of the South Korean Megachurch empire, nor does he want us to sympathize with both protagonists who we’re going to spend 122 minutes with, pastor Sung Min-chan (played by Alienoid’s Ryu Jun-yeol) and detective Lee Yeon-hui (Shin Hyun-been). Both of them have inner demons they wrestle with for the bulk of the runtime, with one of the characters eventually letting them take hold of himself as the story takes multiple dark avenues.
Still, it’s interesting to see that the filmmaker has much more to say about how religion, or more aptly, devotion to a messianic figure, corrupts the human soul than the entirety of Edward Berger’s Conclave, which was lauded for examining the roots of corruption within the Catholic Church. That Oscar-winning film did shed light on its dubious practices with a relatively incurious lens and only used the backdrop of the Vatican as a prop for its “papal gossip” drama. It never bothered to engage with any of its religious imagery: what the mantle of the Cardinal means in the eyes of the Church, how many people do not see the Pope as a figure of responsibility and hope, but power, and how several members of the Church will use their “connection” with God for their own gains.
In the first thirty minutes of Revelations, Sang-ho immediately tells us that its main protagonist has a twisted view of what religion should strive to achieve and fills each ounce of his frames with as many strong images as possible, such as a thunderstorm reflecting on a rock that – strangely – looks exactly like the face of Jesus. That’s enough to make anyone who thinks they have a close connection with the Lord believe that He is speaking directly to them. It may be as unsubtle as a Zack Snyder religious subtext, but when it reflects upon the pastor’s eyes (through a staggering close-up), one has the idea that this movie will not take a happy turn and consistently pull its audience further and further inside Sung’s descent into sin.
Revealing anything about the plot would rob you, dear reader, of the multiple surprises Sang-ho has in store for you as the movie progresses. That is why this review has only mentioned the bare bones of the story to keep everything under wraps. Its opening scene may seem unimportant in how Sang-ho introduces each moving piece and has the characters intersect in the same mile radius when none of them know each other, but it quickly becomes the most important section of the movie when the filmmaker reveals more information on the plot. It’s so intelligently constructed, and meticulously cut together, that we become immediately attracted by its hypnotizing, evocative imagery and how each close-up of a character discovering something crucial to the case communicates with each other.
Sang-ho is in complete control of his visual storytelling, knowing precisely what to show (and what to keep under wraps) to keep the audience guessing at all times and ultimately deceive them. These deceptions – or, more aptly, revelations (see what I did there?) – end up being the film’s funniest sequences, with a sick sense of perverse humor that few filmmakers would even dare attempt to do and execute so well. One scene, in particular, the apotheosis of a confrontation between two opposing characters, ends with a twist that is so darkly funny that one may think Revelations is the year’s most hilarious film. The cathartic release of morbid laughter we get out of watching these sequences play out is exactly where the director wants us to be. As much as we want to be two steps ahead of the script (at some point, we know more than most characters do), we fall right into Sang-ho’s trap and are instantly blown away when we realize they’ve been tricked all along.
Such impeccable precision in its structure wouldn’t have been possible if the acting wasn’t on point, and, luckily, Sang-ho has two impeccable turns from two highly talented figures of South Korean genre cinema leading the fray. Jun-yeol retains a form of catholic innocence that compels us to his character until he becomes sinful and has no desire to repent. This shift continuously makes him riveting, even if it ultimately becomes complicated for the audience to latch onto him when he descends further into impiety. On the flip side, Hyun-been’s turn as the detective is a bit more dramatically layered than the pastor due to a past trauma continuously haunting her, giving some dramatic heft to the proceedings and tangible stakes when the film’s denouement becomes a race against time.
It’s at that point where Revelations becomes a run-of-the-mill, conventional thriller, even if its final shot is an early contender for the most potent symbolism of the year. While I was a bit disappointed in how the movie wrapped up, what comes before is nothing short of exceptional. It’s unfortunate that all of us are forced to experience such an incredible motion picture at home. Sang-ho’s visual precision is worthy of the big screen treatment, and his sense of visual poetry remains unmatched. Here’s hoping his next directorial effort doesn’t get dumped on Netflix and gets the IMAX treatment it so deserves.
