Dhruv Trivedi
‘Grudge’ (originally titled ‘Kin’) on Netflix is a Turkish crime thriller that follows police officer Harun as he gets embroiled in a convoluted revenge plot. Up for a promotion and as head of a dedicated team, things seem to be going well for Chief Inspector Harun until an unknown man tries to murder him.
When the assailant shows up dead in front of the police station the next day, a frantic search for the killer begins, with the inspector trapped uncomfortably close to the crime. The serpentine mystery unfolds in multiple twists and might have left some viewers wondering about the fates of the characters. Let’s take a closer look at the ending of ‘Grudge.’ SPOILERS AHEAD.
Grudge Plot Synopsis
The film opens on a rainy night many years ago, and a team of police officers is seen arresting a poor man for murder. His young son cries and pleads with the police as he watches his father get arrested, but to no avail.
Back in the present, Chief Inspector Harun receives the Policeman of the Year award in Istanbul. On his way back from the ceremony, his boss, the Chief of Police, informs Harun that he is in line for a promotion and will become Chief Superintendent soon if he keeps his head down and runs his department smoothly. However, later that night, an unknown taxi driver attempts to kill Harun. Though caught unaware, the inspector kills his assailant and leaves his body in the woods after carefully wiping his prints off the murder weapon.
The following day, to Harun’s shock, the body of the murdered taxi driver is found hanging in a construction site in plain view of the police station. The Chief takes this as a personal insult to the police department and puts Harun and his team on the case. The inspector pretends not to know about the murder and begins to sabotage the investigation while pretending to help his team solve it. Unbeknownst to him, his soft-spoken underling Tuncay finds multiple clues connecting the inspector to the murder.
Tuncay, however, reveals his findings to Harun and says that he trusts his superior. After accidentally killing a suspect while chasing down a lead, Harun finds himself in even more trouble and considers coming clean and resigning. However, a woman named Gul then comes into the station claiming to have committed multiple murders and asks to speak to Harun. In private, she reveals that she is responsible for the inspector’s predicament and blackmails him to commit another murder unless he wants his secret revealed to the public.
Grudge Ending: Who are Emre and Gul? How Do They Know Tuncay?
Harun eventually realizes that Gul has a vendetta against him and the Chief for an arrest they made many years ago. He rushes to warn his boss, the Chief, about the impending danger but is too late and arrives just in time to watch the Chief die in a car explosion. Following Gul, he finally finds her at a club where she has overdosed on drugs and gradually loses consciousness.
Meanwhile, it is revealed that Tuncay is Gul’s collaborator. By the time Harun corners him, he has already released the video that shows the inspector killing the taxi driver. Before Harun can capture Tuncay, they are surrounded by policemen, and the inspector is ordered to lower his weapon. Tuncay, however, pulls out his gun and shoots himself, claiming to finally break the cycle of grudges.
The film then closes sometime in the future, with a young police officer complimenting Harun for his integrity and the older officer sadly saying that all he is doing is “trying.” The film’s third act is a blur of reveals, plot twists, and deaths driven by Gul and her unlikely collaborator Tuncay.
The plot that Harun gets embroiled in is a long-running ploy by Gul to avenge her father’s arrest many years ago. Since Harun and the Chief of Police arrested the man, it is their destruction that the plot has been leading up to. However, Gul also manages to have killed the other police officers involved in the arrest, as well as the two men that testified against her father.
When Harun realizes who Gul is, he remembers that she had a brother named Emre and asks about him. Gul claims to have lost track of her brother after the arrest of their father and says that he went into a foster home. However, it is finally revealed that Emre eventually got adopted and changed his name to Tuncay. Therefore, Harun’s underling Tuncay is actually Gul’s brother Emre, and the two have been collaborating against the Chief Inspector and the police department for a long time.
Why Do Emre and Gul Want Revenge? Is Their Father Guilty?
Emre and Gul claim that their lives were ruined because of the arrest of their father, who was their primary caregiver. They reminisce about their happy times with him and the devastating effect his arrest and death in prison had on them. Gul subsequently became a drug addict, and Emre was sent to a foster home.
The siblings’ need for revenge stems from their claim that their father was innocent and did not commit the seven murders he was arrested for. The murder victims were poisoned, and the police claim that since the father was the one serving them, he is responsible for their deaths. However, it is finally revealed that his young son Emre actually poisoned the soup after watching his father being mistreated by the men he served.
Therefore, Gul and Emre’s father was not guilty of the multiple murders he was sent to prison for. Though both brother and sister claim that their father’s arrest ruined their lives, ironically, it is because of Emre’s actions that their father was arrested in the first place.
Are Emre and Gul Dead?
In the film’s final standoff, just before Harun is taken into custody by the police, he implores Emre to break the cycle of grudges and revenge that have overtaken his life. In response, Emre agrees to do just that and shoots himself in the head. His sister Gul is revealed to be a drug addict, and we can piece together that she is addicted to the highly toxic opiate called Metopon. The last we see her is right after she injects a dose she claims is her strongest one yet.
Upon Harun’s arrival, Gul says that he is too late and that she is about to die, which she almost certainly does. Both Emre and Gul seem to end their lives with a sense of finality, as if they have at last finished the tasks they had set themselves. Just before her death, Gul also says that she is tired and wants to rest.
Therefore, it seems that the siblings made it their life’s goal to avenge their father’s arrest and subsequent death. Now, with all the police officers and witnesses involved in the arrest dead (except Harun), it seems like there is nothing left for them, and both brother and sister commit suicide on their own terms. Though Harun is left alive, his upstanding image is forever tarnished by the leaked video of him murdering the taxi driver.
Does Chief Inspector Harun Get Promoted?
Chief Inspector Harun eventually survives the ordeal. However, he is crushed by Emre’s death (who he knew fondly as his colleague Tuncay). Since the taxi driver that Harun killed attacked him first, it is unlikely that the inspector faced any legal backlash for it. However, the revelation that he tried to hide his role in the murder and impede the investigation permanently tarnishes his image as a police officer.
In the end, Harun is left with the painful memory of wrongly arresting a man and destroying the lives of the latter’s children: Emre and Gul. In the film’s closing conversation, the young police officer refers to Harun as Chief Inspector. Therefore, we can infer that he never gets the promotion he was promised, likely because of Emre and Gul’s vengeful plot.
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