THE WAILING (2016) Ending Explained

howdy folks welcome to found flicks on this explained video we're looking at the terrifying south korean flick the whaling where suspicion leads to hysteria when rural villagers link a series of brutal murders to the arrival of a mysterious stranger the whaling is an absolutely wonderful and frightening film and i'd argue is one of the best horror movies of the past decade literally everything about it is incredibly well done from the gorgeous cinematography the heartfelt performances and in particular the twisty and complex story that unspools piece by piece into many unexpected and shocking directions it's also just pretty dang scary too especially the first time i watched it i was like it's gotta get to me impressively at a hefty 2 hours and 40 minutes it never feels boring and is constantly engaging throughout the entire run time that will leave you by the end completely shell-shocked as i mentioned the story is quite complex and becomes harder to track what's actually going on as things mutate and change repeatedly leaving you not sure who is exactly the bad guy here so let's dig deep into the world of the wailing breaking down the story and its twist including the important ritual at the heart of the movie along with who the real bad guy here really is and what they're all about and explaining the ending that ties everything together we open on some lush forest vistas and settle into a nice scenic river with mountains in the background a mysterious old man is there fishing working to get his worm on the hook this seemingly feeble man is our main source of evil in this tale and as is referenced to later he is fishing in a sense for new victims we then move to meet police officer jongu and his family given a rude awakening about a murder and he's forced by his mother-in-law to have some breakfast before leaving for the scene there they find the suspect has murdered two people the man looking pretty effed up wide-eyed and covered in blood and boils entering the grisly scene it's mentioned the man was stabbed 20 times leaving jongu wondering what happened as they don't smell booze or anything on the suspect's breath thinking it must have been a crime of passion continuing to look around he finds an odd dying flower bushel hanging on a post and comes to a room with what looks like a pretty messy nest in the corner elsewhere a hiker is wandering through the woods and comes to a deer corpse and attempts to saddle it on his back but loses his balance tumbling down a hill and hitting his head on a rock knocking him unconscious he comes to to a strange sight the old man now on all fours in a diaper digging through his backpack he cautiously peeks over the rock catching his attention and when looking back he's gone hearing a branch snap right next to him he looks up the man right on top of him with glowing red eyes descending down upon him at the police station the whole town is talking about the murders and sumbok has a theory realizing that all of this started after that mysterious japanese man came to town but jongu isn't buying it telling him to stop talking out of his ass besides he has a much more straightforward motive the killer's test came back and apparently he ingested some bad mushrooms which could explain his odd appearance and behavior but tsumbak isn't so sure mushrooms would do that lightning strikes knocking the power out then moaning how they've complained to the captain about the shoddy wiring chong gu is frightened by something outside a naked woman strangely standing at the door by the time they run out she's gone wondering where the hell she went to after this jungu begins having nightmares startled awake after his daughter hyo jim catches him and his wife getting busy in the back seat of the car he buys her off with treats and toys to stay quiet including a pink beret and ocarina busting out some sweet tunes while they sit by the river he stares out seeing the man looming on the other side of the shore and that night brings another brutal murder arriving to a smoldering house the scene in absolute chaos a woman covered in soot keeps freaking out and running around as a body is taken out followed by even more a hand grabs him from under the blanket and attacks him and the lady joins in seeing she has yellow eyes she abruptly stops and runs off leaving jungu terrified seeing the older man again watching in the distance as though he selected him as his next victim and is laying in wait until the right time to strike the next morning the woman's body is found hanging from a tree and the officers go through the crime scene photos learning a victim wasn't burned but stabbed to death the prime suspect being the missus who hung herself leaving them again befuddled of what is going on here they discover a knife under a dresser in the house remains and he remembers being told that she was assaulted by a japanese man then seeing her first encounter with him everyone thinking she was crazy as a result and that she used to run around naked at night this being who we saw back at the police station and even his wife saw her at the bath house covered in boils and mumbling gibberish the entire time as though she's been infected by eew they continue discussing things later zoombox saying the story he told earlier was just a joke but now jongu has changed his mind and thinks that it can't just be the mushrooms responsible a woman watches from below when they tell her to leave she starts throwing rocks at them tsunbox says to just ignore her as she's been doing this all morning he asked him to check with a dermatologist thinking the rash is the link between the victims here and now alone the woman gets closer still throwing rocks annoying jongu asking where she lives she pipes up that the lady killed them all in that room asking what she's talking about she says the old woman went to a shaman to do a ritual but she refused and that's why they all got killed wanting to know who she is she asked him to enter the crime scene and she's somehow aware of the specifics of the murders saying she saw it with her own eyes she brings up the japanese man and how the woman told her that he's a ghost that sucks people's blood dry he mentions that he's seen him once or twice himself and she warns that if you keep seeing him around it's because he's stalking him as was suspected he gets distracted by a phone call that they found a witness and when turning back the woman has vanished going out to the back of the house he spots the man feeding on something his face covered in blood he starts fairly crawling after jongu sending him fleeing through the house and trips when he gets outside the man gets right up on top of him and he wakes up seemingly another nightmare or is it perhaps not as when he wakes up his wife comes in with medication for their daughter saying she's feeling ill enough to miss school hmm that seems odd he finds that she's burning up and so they whisk her way to the hospital the boys tracked down the hiker who encountered the man in the woods showing off where he hit his head muttering that he hasn't slept since that day they asked where the man lives but he advises him not to go still adamant for directions he guides them deep into the woods coming to a bunch of dead animals all lying around realizing the man wasn't making his story up followed by a loud thunder crash in an immediate downpour the guy's like well that's enough for me and starts walking away telling him his house is just over the hill he gets agitated and tumbles down a hill boy this guy is clumsy and is even more annoyed when getting to his feet yelling that he's going to get them fired and starts walking away again only to be struck by lightning leaving him smoking he starts to stumble towards them and then the other way uh where are you going bro you just got struck by lightning he's rushed to the hospital his wifeballing what's the point of taking healthy pills if lightning kills you but believes that it was thanks to their tonics that he survived at all they're then interrupted by news about another patient the first killer being in another room he starts having a seizure his whole body now covered in boils and flailing around we hear a painful snapping deep in his bones as blood starts pouring out of his mouth and he quickly dies everyone's staring in shock at the scene so they take a well-deserved kbbq break looking days and wondering if anyone can make sense of what's happening at least deciding to revisit the man's house tomorrow certain that he's somehow involved in the other room they see a lady also starting to get telltale boils on her neck we're really starting to see how quickly this evil is spreading in their village at home hyojin's illness is growing more severe coming home to her freaking out and screaming just like the man at the hospital was he tries to get her to calm down as she pleads with him to do something the next morning she does seem to be doing much better gobbling down breakfast with piles of scraps all around her on the table but not all is well his mother-in-law pulls him away confused as hyojin never eats fish sure that something is wrong she reached out to the lady next door about finding them a shaman to which jongu agrees in the meantime he meets up with his buddy and his priest and training nephew yangyi sam who can translate japanese to venture to the man's house they find nobody home and let themselves inside for a little peek around yeesam complains of it being illegal but they brush this off and order him to keep lookout while they keep searching he finds a locked off room with candles and stuff burning inside while his buddy finds a ritualistic chamber of some sort the wall's covered in photos certainly all of the man's previous victims including some of the recent ones we've seen in the village understanding the man must have watched and documented every step of the way including when the cops arrive in the aftermath when they're dead outside yi sam is attacked by the man's dog and it gets loose from the ground forcing them inside to block the door it suddenly retreats seeing his master has returned home while tsumbak is staring mesmerized at the display especially focused in on a girl's shoe amongst the pile the man is silent as another storm rolls in and sungbok is shell-shocked by what he saw in the room now positive that this man is the killer and then he took the victim's belongings and did something with them pulling out the shoe that he found which belongs to hyo-jin uh-oh he rushes home to question her about what happened she denies that it's even her shoe despite her name being written inside so he asks if she knows the japanese man to which she gnaws in agreement and he demands that she tell him everything but she's defiant yelling what the hell is so damn important and storms out annoyed later when she's asleep he digs through her belongings for clues finding a chewed up notebook in her backpack then another journal that appears pretty normal at first then turns violent and dark with drawings and weird scribbles along with a demonic visage as well as holes burned into the pages ah yeah something's definitely wrong with her he checks her body for the rash and sees one on her upper leg she suddenly wakes up accusatory about yanking up his daughter's dress in the middle of the night he sits there slackjawed and she commands him to speak calling him an [ __ ] and gets furious and cursing groaning i'm gonna kill all of you luckily the mother-in-law has gotten a hold of the shaman believing the girl to be possessed and she's confident that he can help as word around town is that he's the best there is in the meantime now much more adamant they pay the man a visit and ask some questions and already he's cleared out the entire photo room admitting that he burned them all and all the other stuff there too and there's nothing left in the ashes to jongu's disappointment he accuses the man that he knows what he's doing in the village and with his daughter warning he'll throw him in jail if he doesn't fess up but the man bites his tongue a furious john goo starting to tear his house apart with a pickaxe the dog gets loose again and he kills it gravely telling the man he has three days to leave or he'll end up just like his pooch he seems to retaliate with a curse of some kind the wife coming home to a slaughtered animal hanging in the doorway and jongu finds that he can't get to his feet so time for some acupuncture his mother-in-law tells him to prepare himself as it started and they're planning on bringing in the shaman tomorrow he asks for hyojin is her saying she's being watched by the neighbor he flips that she was left with a stranger yelling that she's out of her mind and when they come back home are greeted by a tragic sight the neighbor lady has been stabbed to hell a quivered heojin covered in blood nearby clutching a pair of scissors the police are called including his bud shocked that it's his family when arriving on the scene the two discussed things now sure it's the work of the japanese man zumba complaining of seeing things since being at his house like a man's face coming out of the wall believing that he's not alive and they understand that they are going to have to do something or he'll get them first cue the shaman speeding his way to the village and when arriving he surveys the area he notices a barrel filled with soy sauce he's told and drags it over smashing it with a stick spilling the precious salty sauce everywhere and oddly there is a dead raven inside as well he claims this is the work of a real nasty spirit and gets to work on his cleaning ritual to alleviate the daughter's possession you know hitting her with a flag and yelling you don't want to leave do you yeah it's usually a good way to start he gets more animated holding two knives and dancing around clanging the knives right beside her head then throws them into the fire the girl screaming bloody murder the entire time he throws some seeds at her the girl falling to the ground and wailing after this the shaman questions him asking that she must have met someone recently that she wasn't supposed to thinking he must have disturbed something stating of all the evil things he's seen this is the strongest jongu admits to his encounter with a japanese man and the shaman smirks he knew it informing him that's no man but a ghost the violence then continues to spread at another house police discover several bodies in a well park toon bay having killed his family also jongu meets with the shaman asking for 10 grand for his services divulging that they're hoping to do an incredibly dangerous hex spell tomorrow to save hyojin ordering him to watch what he eats and drinks or the spell will backfire he asks how the man can be alive and a ghost the shaman correcting he must have been human at some point but not anymore after the ghost got inside of him not everything that breathes or moves is alive going on that countless have perished because if they don't understand and if they don't proceed with the ritual the demon will destroy the entire village calling him an evil ghost that is the king of them all he questions why he picked his daughter tying back to him and the fishing at the beginning that he is simply fishing and doesn't know what he'll catch he threw out the bait and his daughter happened to take it that was all it is random chance that's a bummer meanwhile the man comes across a rotting body in a car seeing park toon bay on his jacket and gets to work on his own ritual first getting some chickens and praying as night falls the shaman simultaneously begins his death hex accompanied by others on drums and starts stabbing at some flanks of meat as you do getting more intense he's handed a chicken and slashes his throat tossing it into a jar causing heojin to freak out while the man is also killing off all of his chickens the shaman drinks from the pot his face now covered in blood and at the truck we see there's candles everywhere now on display the shaman spits blood onto his knives and starts chopping down an effigy that falls into the fire the man still screaming and focused on a picture of chun bae seeing him starting to come back to life in the truck the man is just about to hit his drum again but is physically unable falling to the floor incapacitated and groaning as more stakes are hammered in the man crawls out of his house in pain and suddenly stops moving while the shaman continues carrying the statue on his back and the girl's body starts twisting and bones break jungu has seen enough and starts to knock over stuff yelling for him to stop just as he's about to sacrifice the goat and commands the shaman to leave the man is motionless for a moment then gasps coming to and coughing as though the shaman's ritual failed the woman comes out to see him as the others rush hyojin back to the hospital at his church yang-yi-sam seeks advice from his mentor and he too has heard of the mysterious japanese man knowing that he is alive but has also heard plenty of scandalous dark rumors about him yisem is adamant that they're not just rumors but the priest challenges him how can he be sure if he hasn't seen it with his own eyes and concludes that there's nothing the church can do to help him the next day jongu rounds up some dudes at the restaurant to get the man no matter what with a healthy dose of mob justice they arrive at the house but the man is out at the truck noticing that park chen bae is gone as one of the crew finds his photo in the man's ritual room another yells from outside saying they see something but rather than the man it's the reanimated corpse of chungbe now resembling a deranged zombie barely able to propel himself forward they attack him with sticks and he grabs you sam gnawing off a good chunk of his face and goes right for the top of his skull jungkook bashes him in the head with a rock which has no real effect turning his attention to him the others try to pull him off but he seems supernaturally strong one jams a rake right into his head which really doesn't stop me either trying out a shovel he grabs it away noticing the man watching the whole scene hidden nearby he yanks the rake out of his own head and suddenly stops seemingly pulled back by something and starts convulsing hearing that classic bone cracking sounds and the man is dead they spot the mysterious man and set off in hot pursuit losing him at the edge of a cliff jungu is overwhelmed weeping about saving his little girl and is losing hope and peeking over the edge we see the man is hanging on to the side of her dear life and let's go dropping to the ground they look over but don't see him the man whimpering and certainly injured annoyed seeing the woman is watching him as yet another storm hits defeated the gang heads back to town and along the way jongu attempts to call his wife and gets distracted almost plowing right into a truck coming the other way causing him to swerve all over the road erratically and something large smashes right into their windshield which certainly look like a person and when they go to check indeed it was and in fact it's the japanese man looking quite dead well hey good job right guys that's what they were trying to do in the first place right right no okay no they drag his body off the road launching him over the side of a hill the woman in white surveying them nearby his wife and mother-in-law are busy appealing to the shaman afterwards staring out and smiling the rat fell into his trap hmm wonder what that means perhaps we can't trust this guy jungkoo still wet and covered in blood visits his daughter in the hospital hopeful that she will have been saved and surprisingly she's awake and looking alright her tearing up and telling him that she's fine they tell him that they have this shaman to thank for her recovery telling dad to get some rest and the shaman happens to be calling but jongu screens the call the murders continue to spread regardless this time the victim is soon bak aka ye sam's uncle at the scene dazed and doused in blood the shaman pops back up in the village and notices that his nose is starting to bleed it doesn't stop turning into a faucet and looks over seeing the woman now in a jacket asking what he's doing here he starts puking blood and stuff which is pretty gnarly the woman whispering for him to get out he wisely does so and after a raven crashes into his window at home decides it's probably best to get out of dodge for good he's on his way back to seoul but is given a sign that his work isn't finished back in the village a literal plague of locusts appear and floods across his car he quickly stops and gets out losing his [ __ ] but when looking around none of the bugs were actually there sending him spitting back into town again calling jongu on the way he urges him to get his daughter now saying he misread the divination and cast the hex on the wrong ghost mentioning the woman and that it was actually her responsible for all this crazy and deadly stuff going on not the japanese guy saying that she actually must be the evil spirit he again tells him to go home and is heading there himself he believes the man was trying to kill the woman in order to save people from her and that he is indeed a shaman like him once shanku arrives to the village he comes across the woman waiting for him he asks where his daughter is and the woman somehow knows her name informing him that she's possessed by an evil spirit and that she's at home where else would she be silly but warns him if he goes home now his entire family will perish asking if he's seen the japanese man he remembers at the hanged woman's house when they first met but this was just a dream he utters her telling him this really did happen and it was essentially since then that jung and his family have been marked for death by the man she it turns out has laid a trap for him simply requesting that he wait here until the rooster calls three times asking him to have faith in her in order to save his family meanwhile the deacon discovers the woman's counterparts cave hideout ready to confront him once and for all the man is unphased as usual when asking if his true form is the devil he retorts is that what you think it is it is all casually well you already said it i'm the devil no big deal or anything right but clarifies whatever he says won't change his mind anyway he sam firing back if he's not the devil then show him his true form and offers that if he does he will leave him alone while you're not really in the driver's seat negotiation wise in this situation but good luck with that the man cackles who said i'd let you leave and yeah he's doomed while back in town jongu gets a call from the shaman arguing that he shouldn't trust the woman and to go to his daughter now further complicating things for the father especially when the woman tells him the shaman and the man are in cahoots together well that sounds about right the first rooster call is heard the woman begging him to not waver but when looking around he spots his daughter's beret on the ground and remembers back to when he first met her remembering she was wearing chan park's jacket now convinced that she's the evil one here starting to back away as the rooster screeches for the second time running back home he passes what must have been the woman's trap a flower that immediately withers when he passes his barrier and what we've seen at other previous crime scenes he pushes open the door and finds a place in shambles gore and blood all over the room he discovers hyojin head to toe in blood yelling her name in anguish whoops should have listened to the lady i guess in the cave the man has changed into his true and much more gross form just as ye sam requested which i imagine he's regretting now the demon snaps a photo of his frightened face asking why he has any more doubt of who he is in his heart admitting that he is the devil after all or at least is a big time evil spirit guy the man starts to faintishly cackle ye sam grunting out and oh lord yes you know what you just got yourself into here buddy as don approaches another rainstorm hits the village focusing on the withered flower as the shaman makes it to town he comes to hyojin outside her house and steps inside surveying the carnage and takes some photos himself finding jongu lying there and i would assume mortally wounded still weakly mumbling his daughter's name over and over the shaman retrieves a box from his trunk stuffed with those previous photos of various victims cramming the newest of the collection back in this lets us know without any question that he was indeed working with or at least was an associate of the japanese man from the get-go the way things play out here also makes it abundantly clear that it was the man that it was evil and the woman was benevolent i mean there really wasn't much of a question about that the guys out there running around on all fours in a diaper eating people and stuff you know so in the same sense that the man was possessed by an evil spirit the woman conversely is possessed by a good spirit and the story that's playing out is really their dueling over the family now that we know where they truly stand going back to that big death hack scene what the shaman was really attempting to do here is remove any protection spells or what have you connected to hyojin by the woman same goes for the tainted soy sauce when the shaman first came to town this was actually put in place as protection by the woman so of course he wants to destroy all that stuff and they actually have a kind of pattern to their respective rituals for each of the new victims of the man they each start by taking an item that belongs to them such as the daughter's shoes or the woman taking her beret opposite intentions her to hopefully save them and him to possess them and help spread violence and death the man seems to actually be collecting souls via the photos that they take at the victims and that's what seems to be their main attention here just racking up souls baby inevitably each family targeted must have been presented with the same final decision as john goo and no one must have ever made it to that third rooster call always wavering in their faith and winding up with the tragic outcome that befell his family evil prevails in the end that's for sure and possibly after this the spirit could move on to another host and start the whole thing all over again the battle will continue eternally with that we have reached the conclusion of this in-depth explained video on the whaling things got a bit complicated at the end there that's for sure but hopefully this helped to sort it all out and what the story was really all about lots of twists and turns there and if there's anything else that you still have questions about make sure to leave them down in the comments below and don't forget you can also send me requests for any movies or tv shows you'd like to see me explain by sending them my way on any of my social media accounts at foundflix what did you guys think of the whaling and it's ending what's your favorite south korean horror flick let me know your thoughts down in the comments below make sure to like subscribe and follow thanks for watching found flicks see you next time

Channel: FoundFlix

Views: 1,442,571

Rating: 4.9451628 out of 5

Keywords: the wailing, the wailing ending explained, ending explained, ending, explained, the wailing explanation, explanation, trailer, clip, final scene, end scene, twist, the wailing meaning, the wailing demon, review, spoiler, analysis, foundflix, foundflix ending explained, korean horror

Id: iDdY80gfODM

Length: 23min 52sec (1432 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 26 2020