Revelations – Movie Review | Netflix (4/5)

REVELATIONS on Netflix is a new thriller from South Korea (org. title: Gyesirok). This comes from the director of Train to Busan and the Hellbound Netflix series, which should be enough to intrigue most. Read our full Revelations movie review here!

REVELATIONS is a new Netflix thriller from South Korea (org. title: Gyesirok), and it’s as dark and brutal as we’ve come to expect from South Korean genre movies. This one is another character-driven story with a runtime of right around two hours, but it’s not slow-burn.

Also, the fact that this Netflix movie was made by the director of the zombie mega-hit Train to Busan and the successful Netflix series Hellbound, should tell you a lot. The production quality is gorgeous and the story is as gut-wrenching as it is heartbreaking.

Continue reading our Revelations movie review below. Find it on Netflix from March 21, 2025.

Messages from God or just madness?

In Revelations, we’re following a pastor and a police detective who become part of the same case. The case revolves around a recently released convicted criminal, who seems to be back to his old sadistic ways. Who will stop him and what lengths will they go to do it?!

For the Pastor, the case becomes a personal mission as he believes God is sending him messages to act on. He takes it upon himself to save the world from this terrible human being who does nothing but harm.

But is God actually sending him messages or is it a well-known mental illness where you see messages and conspiracies everywhere? Like the condition where someone can see faces in all sorts of objects [Pareidolia], is the pastor using his faith to allow him to act as he desires?

The police detective, on the other hand, knows firsthand how this criminal has ruined lives. He kidnapped, assaulted, and tortured her sister, which is how he ended up in jail in the first place. However, his sentence was remarkably short.

Brilliantly character-driven thriller

As always with these South Korean movies, Revelation also excels in having characters that are never entirely good or bad. Everyone is some shade of gray as they act on personal desires or convictions.

Is a loving and caring pastor, who also believes in punishing the criminal himself, really as good as he likes to see himself? And can the detective, who needs to self-medicate because she’s haunted by visions of her dead sister, really be objective and do her job on this case?

Finally, we have a criminal, who is clearly a sadistic and evil person, but is there more to him? Nothing that excuses his actions, obviously, but is he acting on his own accord or is he himself a victim?

Nothing is cut and dry in Revelations, so you’ll be faced with many dilemmas. As always with South Korean genre movies, to me anyway, the ending of Revelations does not disappoint.

Familiar faces are front and center in Revelations

The stars of the South Korean Netflix thriller should be familiar to anyone who has watched South Korean productions – including on Netflix. As Pastor Min-chan, we have Ryu Jun-yeol, who previously starred in the Netflix series The 8 Show.

If you haven’t watched that Netflix series yet, you have a treat in store.

As the traumatized and haunted police detective Yeon-hee, we have Shin Hyun-been. You may recognize her from The Closet (org. title: Keullojet).

And finally, as that nightmarish criminal Kwon Yang-rae, who is on the hunt for his next victim, we have Shin Min-jae. He was in the Netflix sci-fi action movie Jung_E and the Netflix horror sci-fi series Parasyte: The Grey. In Revelations, he is an actual revelation!

Watch Revelations on Netflix

While I’ve mentioned director Yeon Sang-ho a few times, he actually wrote this movie with Choi Gyu-seok. This was the same duo that brought us the Netflix series Hellbound, which should give you an idea of just how dark Revelations also is.

Using religion as a backdrop, with a police detective who has her own ghosts as the other driver, and a brutal sadistic antagonist, is a recipe for something powerful and dark. This movie does not shy away from those difficult scenes or moments, so it hits hard.

With this Netflix movie, director Yeon Sang-ho and his co-writer Choi Gyu-seok are adapting their 2022 comic of the same name. It’s a story of faith and beliefs just as Hellbound is.

Producing this movie is Academy Award winner Alfonso Cuarón, who is a fan of the director and loved this story. I can easily see why as it is very universal and hits damn hard.

While this Netflix movie isn’t one of the very best South Korean thrillers, I’ve ever watched, I  still highly recommend checking it out on Netflix. It’s a brilliant movie in its own right.

Revelations (org. title: Gyesirok) is on Netflix worldwide from March 21, 2025.

Details

Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Writers: Choi Gyu-seok, Yeon Sang-ho
Cast: Ryu Jun-yeol, Shin Min-jae, Shin Hyun-been