Picture Credit; Netflix
From executive producer Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity, Roma) & the creative team behind Netflix’s breakout series Hellbound, Revelations is the new mysterious crime thriller from Train to Busan writer/director Yeon Sang-ho and writing partner Kyu-Seok Choi. Yeon Sang-ho has previously worked on such Netflix projects as the 2023 film Jung_e & the 2024 series Parasyte: The Grey.
Adapted from Yeon & Choi’s 2022 comic of the same name, the story centers on a missing persons case pursued by Detective Lee Yeon-hui (Shin Hyun-been) and Pastor Sung Min-chan (Ryu Jun-yeol), each with their own set of motives and beliefs.
After encountering a registered sex offender at his small local church, Pastor Sung follows him, believing that someone close to him may be in grave danger. Detective Lee knows firsthand what this man is capable of as he was previously arrested for kidnapping & torturing her sister before being let off on an insanity defense. Driven to the brink by the public’s support for his release, her sister took her own life.
When a young woman from Pastor Sung’s church is believed to have been taken by this man and the offender himself has also disappeared, Sung & Lee’s story intertwine – Lee fighting her guilt and the urge to take her revenge & Sung gripped by divine revelations embarking on a dark journey to bring down the abductor.
While the film is filled with religious imagery & potential interventions from above, Revelations is more of a tale of justifications and motivations for the things we do. Guilt, signs from God, “one-eyed monsters” all acting as coping mechanisms for the unexplained horrors of our universe and the guiding hand leading us to a conclusion that satiates our needs.
For Detective Lee, she is haunted – literally & figuratively – by the ghosts of her sister’s passing. She is beaten down by hopelessness & despair as she couldn’t save her during and after her horrific ordeal. For Pastor Sung, he needs to believe his malicious intentions were guided and approved by the almighty as a means to cleanse his world of evil and clear the path for his promotion as spiritual leader of the massive new church being built in his territory. For Kwon Yang-rae, his belief in a monster that eats & takes his victims is a psychological break that allows him to separate himself from the abuse of his stepfather and his own atrocities.
At its best, Revelations weaves these storylines into a tense procedural that shines a light on how we deal with the pain of our sometimes tragic realities. With some strong confrontations – both emotional & physical, the film has a way of drawing you in and holding you until the next twist occurs.
However, in its lesser moments, the story seems to devolve into over-the-top comic book villainy and soap opera dramatic flair that takes you out of a potentially meaningful philosophical clash, delving more into possession rather than obsession or rationalization.
Picture: Netflix
While an incredibly low bar at this point in the year, Revelations is one of the better Netflix Original films of 2025 so far. However, it has a long way to go to reach the heights of Director Yeon’s previous projects (minus the dreadful Jung_e). Watchable with moments of true intensity and emotional introspection is the most you can expect 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 called upon to be the devil, you bring the devil out. That is exactly what Shin Min-jae does as the smiling, sarcastic, strategic, and sometimes slack-jawed serial offender. His dopey & dumpy demeanor lull you into a false sense of security until he’s backed into a corner. Bloodied, tied up, gun in his face … Kwon always seems to know just what to say to get the power back on his side. While he may not have a signature strength that will elevate him to iconic villain stature, don’t tell me you won’t remember his battered, cockeyed face singing church hymns with a dead-eyed stare. As the kids say, Shin got the assignment.
With echoes of his intense genre-heavy past and his past musings on morality & trauma, director Yeon largely succeeds with Revelations as an engrossing yet flawed tapestry of grief, belief, and the justifications we tell ourselves to move forward in our chosen paths.
Rating: TV-MA
