Compared to many of his notable live action feature films such as “Train to Busan” (2016), South Korean filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho’s animation feature films are a lot more unnerving and uncomfortable. I still remember how disturbed I was as watching “The King of Pigs” (2011), and I hope I will never have to watch again this truly disturbing story about bullying at school. I also remember how unnerved I was as watching “The Fake” (2013), which struck me really hard with its grim and gritty religious drama of cruelty, hypocrisy, and despair.

I have often wondered when Yeon will actually make a live action film as dark and despairing as those two animation films of his, and now there comes an answer via his recent Netflix film “Revelations”, which was released several weeks ago. Mainly revolving around several different kinds of delusion, this gloomy piece delves deep into the madness associated with the hypocrisy and cruelty of the South Korean church system in one way or another, and what we are going to behold is pretty unpleasant and uncomfortable to say the least.

At first, we are introduced to Min-chan (Ryu Jun-yeol), a young married pastor who has struggled for getting promoted from his rather shabby church to a bigger (and more expensive) church someday. At the beginning of the film, we see him supervising another prayer meeting at his little church, and that is when he happens to notice a rather suspicious guy who does not even seem interested in joining the church. He is Yang-rae (Shin Min-jae), and, what do you know, Min-chan soon comes to discover that Yang-rae is actually an ex-convict recently released after serving some time in prison for his heinous sex crime.

When his wife notifies him that his young son is missing not long after that, Min-chan certainly becomes quite frantic. After getting the address of where Yang-rae’s current residence, Min-chan instantly goes there, and then he decides to follow after Yang-rae after witnessing Yang-rae in the middle of doing something very suspicious.

After that narrative point, the screenplay Yeon and his co-writer Choi Gyu-seok, which is based on the online comic book series of the same name written by them, takes several dark plot turns as things become more complicated for Min-chan. When he eventually finds himself in a very serious trouble, he happens to see a sort of religious sign, and that is the beginning of his gradual descent into more madness, hypocrisy, and self-justification. Believing more that his God gave him a divine sign, he becomes more like your average loony zealot, and he gets all the more convinced when there comes a couple of reversals of fortune on his way.

In the meantime, the movie also focuses on Yeon-hee (Shin Hyun-been), a young female cop who has been obsessed with Yang-rae for a painful personal reason. Around the time of Yang-rae’s disappearance, a young girl happened to be gone missing, and it is quite possible that she was kidnapped by Yang-rae. As she and other policemen hurriedly look for Yang-rae, Yeon-hee also begins to suspect Min-chan, who happened to try to call the police when he witnessed Yang-rae at that time.

And we get to know more about Yeon-hee’s own troubled state of mind. Still angry about not only what Yang-rae committed but also how he was released rather early, her mind is often haunted by what is supposed to be the ghost of Yang-rae’s victim, and that certainly makes her feel often conflicted about her investigation. She still hates Yang-rae as before, but she really needs to find him alive for saving that kidnapped girl as soon as possible, and then she later finds herself quite tempted by a chance for going all the way for revenge instead.

The movie stumbles more than once during its last act, and the following resolution is delivered a bit too easily in my humble opinion, but the movie keeps us engaged even though we usually observe its three troubled main characters from the distance. It is quite uncomfortable to observe how willingly Min-chan goes down and down into his pit of madness and self-justification, and you may think some of his key scenes are too exaggerated, but, folks, I have seen many South Korean Christians showing such loony behaviors like that in the name of God or whatsoever. While Yang-rae turns out to be a deeply damaged figure who simply cannot help himself in front of his dark impulse originated from his unspeakable childhood trauma, Yeon-hee turns out to be more troubled than expected, and it is poignant to see how she eventually grabs an unexpected opportunity for salvation with some common sense.

The three main cast members are well-cast in their respective parts. Ryu Jun-yeol surely has a number of showy moments along the story, and he deftly delivers these dark moments with enough irony and absurdity under the surface. Shin Hyun-been’s low-key acting is an effective counterpart to Ryu’s more extroverted performance, and Shin Min-jae ably balances his tricky role between repulsion and pity.

In conclusion, “Revelations”, which is incidentally produced by none other than Alfonso Cuarón, is a darkly compelling genre piece which demonstrates that Yeon still can unnerve and disturb us as he did in “The King of Pigs” and “The Fake”. This is definitely not something you can casually watch on Sunday afternoon, but the movie is still worthwhile to watch for its grim but striking drama about belief and madness, and it will probably leave you something to think about after it is over.