THE WAILING (2016) Ending Explained 

Has anyone noticed this dude has never put an ad into his videos. No sponsors, just pure greatness. Much respect

The animosity between Korean people and Japanese people adds another layer of context as to why the Japanese guy had so many rumors against him

Her telling him to wait until the rooster crows 3 times is interesting- it’s a pretty blatant reference to the disciple Peter. Right before Christ was arrested and crucified he told Peter that he would deny him 3 times before the rooster crowed. Peter did indeed deny being a follower of Jesus three times for fear that they would arrest and murder him too. By not listening to the woman and heeding her warning he denied her benevolent nature. Ultimately, Peter was crucified upside down because he did not think himself worthy to be crucified upright as Jesus was.

so when he transformed into a demon he simultaneously whipped out his camera proving that vloggers are demons

I dont come here to have an ending explained to me in full detail. No, I come here to watch a movie in 20 minutes. Im literally too lazy to go sit my ass on a couch and be lazy.

Everyone: Who’s the bad guy in the video This video: yes

This may be the most complicated summary I have ever heard.

dude didn't just explained the ending, he explained the whole film lmao.

13:52 this is why I love this channel😂❤his sense of humor is just *chefs kiss*

Snapdragon flowers look so much like human skulls when they die it's uncanny.

Now that I‘m watching this, the comparison to yin and yang (ik that’s Chinese and not Japanese but still). Both (:the Japanese man and the (Japanese) "shaman") held their rituals at the same time. One wearing white, sacrificing white chickens and the other one wearing black (if I remember correctly) and sacrificing black chickens. I viewed this as the usual representations of good and evil, with white being good and black being evil (ofc :/) but NOW I‘m realizing that if we were to compare the two to yin and yang they compliment and complete eachother.

This doesn't feel like an explanation so much as a summary

*Sees bones crack, boils, and demonic eyes/behaviors* Town: *Must be mushrooms*

I really went from "oh the old man is a demon" to "wait, it's not him, i feel bad for him now" to "omg it's the lady in white, fuck" to "oh shit it's really the old man" to "wait who really IS IT" What a mindfuck this film was. The monster reveal in that cave was fucking scary as hell

Yeah if it's a horror movie and it's Korean, don't expect a happy ending

I love Japanese and Korean horror flicks, they're more about the story than cheap jump scares.

"Not everything that breathes or moves is alive" Damn, I've felt that.

The thing that foundflix missed to explained is it is implied that the evil curse spread through sexual intercourse. The naked woman who hanged herself was raped by the japanese on the river bank. when the father found the dauther's gnawed notebook there's a drawing that implied that she had been raped too by the japanese. The reason why the evil curse spread quickly in the village is because of an escort woman (in 7:43 minutes) also contracted the curse (she's having boils) and spread it to other villagers. So it was some sort of STD curse like in It Follows

Another thing not mentioned is that the Shaman is wearing undergarments that a Japanese man would wear(The demon was seen wearing this during those scenes where he was almost naked with red eyes).

My favourite part is the grandma being like: my child does not eat this food, who are you tiny imposter!

Out of all of the horror movies you've covered, this one is the most intriguing one of them all to me. Love the idea of a war between spirits portrayed in the perspective of a man who's just trying to save him family. Truly unfortunate that evil won out in the end.

To clarify everything briefly: - The woman in white is the good guy. Comparable from a Korean point of view to a divinity protecting the village, and from a christian point of view to Jesus or someone as pure as him. She throws stones because she didn't sin, she can physically touch the character, and like Jesus and Saint Peter, she submits the hero to a final test of faith, which he failed ( the rooster ). She uses the zombie and the raven to attack the Japanese, but she fails. - The Japanese is the devil incarnated. All the signs are there ( goat head, black dog, etc ). Yet he still has a physical form: if both christians and traditional korean beliefs mention that a ghost has no form, the Devil is neither a ghost neither a human. Weither the japanese is his physical form or a possession of someone is however unclear, but from a historical point of view Japanese and Korean have always been antagonists, meaning he choose appearance according to his preys. Having a physical form, he's unable to touch the ravens himself and is vulnerable to the Zombie, which explain why he can't help the dog nor he can remove the raven in the soy jar himself. When his curse reach innocents, such as the daughter or the policeman colleague, skin rash manifests. - The pictures are part of the Devil's ritual. He takes the pictures before the deaths and the Shaman take the picture after. Which explains how the Devil already had a picture of the priest, dead, and with his cheek badly damaged on his altar room. By doing so he trap souls but also keep physical evidences of his crimes, while the white lady relies more on pure faith like christian did ( Jesus had to take form in front of Saint Thomas for him to believe ). - The Shaman works with the devil, weither for money or because he's forced to ( the vision he has while fleeing with a car is the Japanese warning him to come back to finish his duty. Comparable to the locusts ). He probably signed a deal with the devil. Being human, or partially human, he uses his fake good image to lure the characters to hate the Japanese, pushing them to seeking revenge, hurt the Japanese, and by doing so becoming sinners and hence a prey for the Devil ( which is why he talks about the bait when the Japanese is hit by the car: the main characters became sinners and are now at the devil's reach ). He also keeps the pictures that the Japanese claims to have burnt. If the Japanese man is the christian Devil, relying on sins and possessions, then the shaman is his shield against traditional Korean divinities chasing him. - The hero fails the final test of faith, as did Peter with Jesus, breaking the trap and allowing the evil to reach his home. While we don't know if the family could have been saved, he allows the evil ritual to go on and the devil to escape freely. That same trap previously kept the Shaman away from the home.

When the dude who watches horror films for a living gets scarred, you know its gonna be a good film.

sadly he and his family was marked for death after he trips in front of possessed old lady house, even tho ghost girl warned them to go away by throwing stones at em early.

Damn she could have really just said "We're both possessed and using magic but he's bad and I'm good. If you wait until the rooster crows three times your daughter won't slaughter your family"

This movie is awesome and terrifying, as a father there is nothing more scary than being unable to protect your family. The ending with the demon in the cave still keeps me up at night

I can't wait for someone to make a horror movie call "The Whaling", where someone spends lots of money on lootboxes and not getting what he wanted.

The one thing I remember the most about watching this movie was that it had the most realistic scene of someone vomiting that I've ever seen, and every movie these days somebody just spits out a big glob of puke colored water and cornstarch mix, but one dude straight vomited a liquidy waterfall and I was grossed out and impressed lol

I love the idea of good and evil spirits battling for the soul of this family.

Small little detail that was missed was the withered flowers that were being focused on. Those are snapdragon flowers. Notice the skull-like shape of the pedals? That is the signature look of snapdragon flowers when they wither. They are used to scare off curses, sorcery and other evil things.

Just a heads up, it's a barrette, not a beret. A beret is a hat, a barrette is a hair clip.

This film was sick. That monster reveal was one of creepiest moments I ever seen/

This isn't an explanation. It's just reiterating what happened during the movie scene by scene.

Some dude: *Having a whole seizure, cracks his neck, and literally becomes a fountain of blood* Me: I think it’s time to get some meat sizzling for a great KBBQ! And at least a gallon of soju for the trauma

One thing I noticed about Korean horror/thrillers is that they know how to use Comedy really well whilst not taking away from the events of the film no matter how dark. For example in 'Memories of Murder' there is a running joke about a boot in a film that centres around catching a serial rapist.

based on the Director`s interview. In Korea, there is an old superstition that every each area have a ghost who protects the people of the village. They call it "Tochack-ryung" means ghost who stick in the land. So the woman here is a kind of good ghost who is fated to protect the village. She wanted to protect her village from that evil spirit. This is why she was wearing victim`s stuff like cloths, hairpin. The shaman is connected to the old japanese man. He is also a japanese. A scene where the shaman is changing clothes, he wore the same underwear as the japanese man. Why shaman does all of this is because he tricks the people of the village and earn money through it. Japanese man is possessed by an evil. Sometimes he is just a normal person and that’s why he was crying at the cliff scene. While the shaman is performing the ritual, the Japanese man is also suffering - Director said it in the interview, that wasn’t the same time event. The director wanted to make the audience a little bit confused. this movie has a simple story line but the director cut and slice some scenes and mix it together and that’s why it makes this movie harder to understand. Based on Director Hong-jin, Na`s interview

The exorcism scene is one of my favorite pieces of cinematography, not just because it's performed by Hwang Jung Min, but the duality between the shaman and Japanese man is just beautifully eerie and a perfect mood piece.

The bouncing back and forth of not knowing who to trust makes this the scariest and we'll produced game of Among Us ever

This movie was so great. Had so many twists and always had you wondering who was really the evil person. At some points you end up feeling sorry for the devil and thinking everything you’ve thought up to that point has to be a lie. But then it turns again and makes you say wtf!! I wish there were more movies like this that had the audience go through so many emotions

I'm surprised the biblical themes of the movie haven't been discussed on any youtube video yet. It opens literally with a bible verse. The entire last part references Jesus' death and resurrection. Also, is it just me or during the shaman's hex ritual, it looks like he's chopping down an effigy of Jesus with a crown?

Korean horror flicks, because real life just isn't horrifying enough.

This movie has 3 subtle underlying themes. 1. Rape and spread of disease through STD. 2. Japanese war crimes against Korea. 3. Christianity(Good) vs Old religion(Bad).

Is no one going to mention the top-notch sound design of this movie? The rain sounded so realistic, and the ritual scenes created an atmosphere of curiosity but also of dread. Everything in this movie fits so well together.

That dark souls “you died” had me cracking up. Wasn’t expecting that lol

Has anybody noticed what the shaman was wearing when he was changing? There was a blanket covering his body just like what the old japanese man was wearing.

Search Wailing alternative ending where the shaman picks up the Japanese man and they drive off while the woman looks on them, would be interesting to see a sequel or prequel focusing on the woman

I just finished watching ryan hollinger's video on this film aswell. What a great timing.

Me, a Catholic, hearing the "wait for the rooster to crow three times": I got that reference.

0:40 when he says that he got scared from watching it, you know it’s a great horror movie

I was expecting this "ending explained" video to be at least an hour long because of how confusing the movie was. In a good way of course.

I'm going to suggest the movie '23' staring Jim Carrey once again. It's a good movie that I personally really liked and it can be quite confusing so it'd be perfect for an Ending Explained Really loved the video as always, keep up the great work :)

Oldboy would be an easy one to do. There's also memories of a murder is probably my favorite bong joon ho movie based on a true story.

Take notes Hollywood. It is possible to do a Horrorfilm on atmosphere and not with 1500 jumpscares.

The amount of incompetence and stupidity in this movie really bothers me.

15:09 priest saying how can he be sure if he hasn't seen it with his own eyes.....the irony of that statement could club someone =P

I’ve waited for this one for a very very long time , probably the only film that genuinely scared me for the last 5 - 10 years lol 🔥🔥🔥

Korea in general has some damn terrifying mythology, so it's good to see more of their horror movies coming into the mainstream awareness!

14:01 I believe that at some point before the ritual the Japanese man has become free of the evil spirit and during his ritual he was trying to expel the evil spirit into the corpse in the car. That would explain why the Japanese man seemed so fearful when the mob attacked him.

I'm pretty sure this movie has something to do with Japanese war crimes during WWII. Japanese man equals Japan, naked woman equals comfort women, chaos comes with Japan.

Recently, I've found South Korean cinema to be so interesting. From Train to Busan to Monster, to Wailing and Kingdom. So many good films.

Bruh tell me why I thought the title was “The Walking”

It's not a diaper at first, it's the way that certain japanese supernatural shapeshifting creatures called "Oni" wear to cover their genitals. The Shaman and the Oni were in a deal for human harvests and Korean supernatural folklore where each village has it's own benevolent protecting spirit. It's an amazing, amazing criss cross on Japanese- Korean folklore as historically Japanese were a really aggressive race and they had Korea annexed under their empire for years.

You shud change the title from "ending explained" to "movie explained"😕

This movie contains a lot of information about korean traditional religion. Koreans believe that old objects like vases or brooms can contain spirits. Old houses contains holy spirits that protect the house and the family. The woman in white seems to be the protective spirit of the house. When the shaman was doing his ritual he was actually trying to weaken the protective spirit but failed and the ritual backfired, weakening the japanese.

Damn I really wanted to watch this ending explained but after that introduction Imma have to hit pause and go watch the movie 🎥🍿. Seems this one is to good for me to spoil it for myself😂 brb

Huge foreshadowing in the beginning btw, with the “fisherman” using a doubled hook… There’s reasons the woman threw stones as well, reasons why the “2nd shaman” returned to after the woman frightened him away. But there’s a LOT to unpack given the time. This was one hell of a film

I was literally reading a post on reddit about this movie exactly 2 hours ago. And then Jamie post a video on it. Coincidence... *I THINK NOT*

The Wailing is by leaps and bounds the greatest horror movie I've ever seen, and I would argue one of the greatest ever made. I've watched it a few times and still find it fascinating each time. There's more and more to pick up on. So well written. I appreciate your take on the ending. I differ on one point which is that the woman is not possessed by a good spirit. She IS a spirit. I'm no expert on this but I think some aspects of East Asian religion believe in guardian protective spirits of places. These spirits are often venerated at shrines or prayed to by travelers for protection. I think this woman is the village's protective spirit. This explains a few things like how she disappeared without a sound in the charred house, why so few people even see her and nobody knows her (in such a small village), and why she looks pale as a ghost in the ending scenes where she tries to warn the father not to go home. She has an inhuman grayish look to her skin that he doesn't in that scene. You could think of her like the village's spiritual immune system, trying to drive out the evil disease. She isn't human. There's a deleted scene where The Japanese Man attempts to lure a child with candy and fails because the parents usher her away. He then gets in a car with the Shaman and the spirit woman watches them as they drive down the highway, apparently leaving town to find another village to fish for souls in. She doesn't follow them. I think she is bound to the village the story is set in and only protects them. She's not hunting the evil wherever it goes. Alternatively, the ending is not meant to be entirely cut and dry, as this story has a lot of metaphorical depth about belief, faith, distrust, xenophobia (fear of outsiders), confirmation bias, and so on. The official reports shown on the news in the movie link the rash to a mushroom health tonic, supporting the earlier claim from the police officer. It could be that the real story is that this mushroom tonic made them all develop a fungal infection that causes the rash and crazy behavior and that the demonic activities aside from that were all hallucinated by the victims of the tonic. There are things that push against this being the real story, but I think we're not meant to know exactly what happened, as a main theme of the film is revealed when the devil basically says "I am what you say I am and what I say won't change your mind", probing the viewers to reflect on confirmation biases.

For people who enjoy the kind of hopeless atmosphere presented in a film like this and haven't seen Oldboy, check it out ASAP. Used to be the Korean film that everyone knew, but now that Parasite has taken that spot, I thought I would plug it for everyone else. Not quite horror, but I would call it horror adjacent and definitely fucked up and interesting enough for someone who likes the wailing

You've given this movie such good praise that I've decided to watch the movie first before watching your video.

This is not really an explanation 🙄 more like a summary

Man this movie is long but feels so short, the ending made me rethink everything I just watched

This movie especially the old man’s true form haunted me for days after

I'm confused- where is the ending explained? This video was just a summary. I wanted to hear commentary on the ending, not a play by play- I literally just watched the movie. Thanks for wasting twenty minutes of my life.

One of the best horror film ever. There is a alternative ending that you could watch on YT. It basically led to the same conclusion. It just reaffirm those two shaman knew each other beforehand and moving on together. P.s I've no idea that throwing stone scene is a biblical reference.

Korea still makes the most scary intense horror flicks over the yeads

the women is wearing white, a sign of purity this also shows how she was the good one sad times...

This flip flop who is evil approach reminds me a lot of The Handmaid. It's also a South Korean movie that was pretty good.

80% of the video was just a summary of everything that happened. Really unnecessary. I'm here because I want the ending explained, not because I want a summary of the movie that I *just* watched.

If you know the saying "Let he (she, in this case) who is without sin cast the first stone" you can figure out who the good one is early, but her playfully throwing rocks isn't going to trigger that when shit gets going. A great way to tell you early, before lines are even drawn. A second watching casts new light on this gem.

Oh look, a movie I have never seen and didn't even know existed. Guess I'll watch it through Foundflix 🤷🏻‍♂️

This is not much of an "ending explained" video. It's mostly an overlong summary of the movie. You're doing nothing but recapping what we all saw. No better than a Wikipedia summary. It adds absolutely nothing to the discussion, offering no form of analysis or interpretation. Kinda disappointing.

I don’t need to watch movies any more🤣

Great I'm early for the first time ever!!

FYI, if you are looking for ending explained, fast forward to 21 minutes. The majority of this video is just recapping the whole movie.

Yo foundflix, how about you explain gojira (1954)? I would like to hear your thoughts on the movie. Does he read comments?

This is how a modern day Dracula should be made. You still have the central theme to Dracula but new enough for a modern audience. The main theme of Dracula was the fear of promiscuity. You’ve got a sexual transmitted virus that makes monsters.

Really dont want to sh**t on this guy but every time I search on youtube and "ending explained" to a film with ambiguous ending, I always get a feeling of apprehension before clicking on this guys content. Simply because every time all he does tell me exactly everything I've just watched while offering little to none explanation at all. Basically just a recap? Can anyone point me out to a decent take of an explanation for the Wailing? Thanks!

You just had to go with most scariest thubmnail out the movie you could find huh???

I thought the main character was having a affair with his the woman in the back seat. lol

I've watched it 4x now ..even though the ending is crystal clear... its still difficult to reconcile with Il Gwang's (the Shaman) initial purpose. The grandmother brought him to help Hyo Jin...was he waiting for his invitation to work against the family?. Hyo Jin was already 'sick' with the evil spirit. Was Il Gwang making it worse? What was the father's sin? Who did he accuse? He was against the Japanese man from the start. I appreciate the way the film keeps us from the truth until the end..but it's still not completely clear

I love this channel because he just tells us the entire movies in 20 minutes

The Chaser is a great Korean thriller that you should do a FoundFlix for.

Just watched this movie and the main lesson for me was to not be emotional and rash when you make decisions, I think that is where the cop failed at the end. If he had just taken a step back and been objective for a sec, there were so many clues that the old man was really the evil one, it was so obvious, but he never took the time to think about it, he was just acting on impulses the whole movie.

I saw Ryan Hollinger's thoughts on the movie, but I was waiting for this full review!!

Memories of Murder by Director Bong Joon-ho would be a great ending explained! Anyone else?

This is so one of my favorite horror movies I've watched pretty much anything youtube has on it because there's just so much going on. What I have learned from them -there's a layer of history between Koreans and Japanese that helps lead to the distrust. There's the battle between and blending of Shamanism and Christianity in the region and the movie with the main character committing each one of the seven deadly sins before the end and with the woman not throwing 'rocks' but throwing 'stones' showing from the beginning that she was the good one. An alternate ending shows the shaman giving the Japanese man a ride out of town and her stuck staring at the border, basically she is a land spirit and can't leave her area and so he goes on to do this again and again. He goes, starts a plague, the shaman comes in gets rich and "ends it". When the shaman changes from all white to all black during that one conversation it is a sign of that and all that puking was because he got too near the trap. Also apparently he doesn't lead a particularly shamanistic life and something was off about the ritual like it shouldn't involve killing. He was really just making sure the girl got possessed . The diaper thing is apparently an undergarment often worn by shamen, indicating the old man might have been one himself before and was possessed. Sometimes, he's not though. When he's praying and cleansing himself in the water and when he finds the body in the truck for example. The ritual he performs is actually trying to drive the demon out of himself and into the corpse of the dead guy thus freeing everyone, with the nice trick of two rituals going on at the same time making it look like they are in tandem but are actually dueling as he's trying to send the demon into the dead guy but neither one gets completed so demon stays, girl still possessed, dead guy half reanimated. More christian imagery at the end with the 'deny me before the cock crows three times' thing. And yeah, lots going on. But basically, girl good, old man and shaman bad, don't eat the mushrooms (they were poisonous), and have a little faith. ;)

One thing I don’t understand… if the woman in white was benevolent, why did she tell him to not go home until the third rooster crow? She told him if he went back early, his whole family would die. But obviously they were already being killed. So even if he’d have waited, he’d have come home to the same result, right?

damn ive never been here this early (LOL can we get the longest same chain tho)

Thanks for the explanation, 'cause I was. confused after watching the movie. I do wish they make that movie in English. and I still think train to Busan, so far was the best South Korean horror movie