A number of South Korean movies have found mainstream international success in the last few years, including the 2016 zombie thriller Train to Busan from director Yeon Sang-ho. Years later, Yeon would team up with Choi Gyu-seok to adapt their webtoon Hellbound for Netflix, and now the two are back with their latest feature for Netflix, Revelations.
Based on another of their webtoons, Revelations avoids the fantastical elements that Yeon and Choi typically explore. This is a grounded story about a detective assigned to a missing-person case and a pastor who believes God wants him to punish the perpetrator.
“The story centers on the character psychologies of [Pastor] Sung Min-chan and [Detective] Lee Yeon-hui, who resemble one another, but make very different choices,” director Yeon told Tudum in an interview prior to the film’s release. “I wanted to create a story about a lead character with egocentric views, someone who sees and believes only what he wants to. I was thinking of such a character through whom I could create a story within the genre, and Sung Min-chan, a pastor of a new church, was born.”
Revelations stars Ryu Jun-yeol (A Taxi Driver) stars as Pastor Sung Min-chan with Shin Hyun-been (Hospital Playlist) as Detective Lee Yeon-hui.
Reviews are mixed, as they were for Yeon’s 2023 film Jung-E. IndieWire said that while the two main characters make for solid rivals, the movie “has great difficulty threading a basic detective story into the fabric of the operatic moral thriller that Yeon weaves around it.” RogerEbert.com added that the “melodramatic action undoes” the work of the stars.
Nevertheless, if you’re a fan of Train to Busan or Hellbound, you’re sure to find something to like in this bleak crime thriller from director Yeon.
Revelations is now streaming on Netflix.
