Dhruv Trivedi
‘Yaksha: Ruthless Operations’ follows a desk-bound prosecutor who gets embroiled in a violent espionage mission along with the renegade secret agent, Yaksha (whose name incidentally refers to a human-devouring spirit). After a serious error in judgment lands him in the sleepy offices of the government intelligence agency, the only way the prosecutor, Ji-Hoon, can be reinstated is by taking on the dangerous mission.
Out in the embattled town of Shenyang, Ji-Hoon’s only connection to the officials back in Seoul is through his boss Yeom Jeong-won, the director of the National Intelligence Service. The fiery and twisting end of the film, however, paints a very different picture of the director and finds her in a potentially fatal situation. Does Yeom Jeong-won survive? Let’s take a closer look at ‘Yaksha: Ruthless Operations’ and find out. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Is NIS Director Yeom Jeong-won Dead or Alive?
For most of the narrative, Director Yeom communicates with Ji-Hoon from her relatively safe offices back in South Korea. However, near the end of the film, it begins to appear that someone from the National Intelligence Service (NIS) is leaking information to Ozawa, the rogue Japanese spy, and Yaksha’s main rival. This is why the Japanese always seem to be one step ahead of Yaksha’s crew and even manage to find the latter’s secret hideout.
The entire story of the film, in fact, centers around moles and double agents, and Director Yeom turns out to be one as well. The director of the Korean NIS is found to be working with Ozawa all along and sending Ji-Hoon to track Yaksha down in Shenyang is part of her bigger plot. Of course, this also means that Yoem’s name is likely on Ozawa’s all-important secret list of double agents which gets sent to intelligence agencies around the world at the end of the film.
Ultimately, Ozawa double-crosses Yeom when he realizes he has no further use of her. With Moon’s daughter under his control, Ozawa thinks he now has access to the explosive secrets that her father passed on. Thus, it appears that Ozawa actually reveals Yeom’s location to Yaksha, who has since realized that the director is a mole. Yaksha and his team subsequently ambush Yeom in Shenyang by overturning her car. The director then confesses her part as a double agent but tries to bargain her way out by saying she is the only one who can bring Ozawa to justice. Of course, Yaksha doesn’t buy it and proceeds to fire in her direction multiple times.
Though it appears as though Yeom is brutally killed by Yaksha on the side of the road, the agent doesn’t actually kill the director. We don’t see Yeom again but, after the film’s climax, a brief conversation tells us that she is still alive. Yaksha actually delivers Yeom to Ji-Hoon, the prosecutor, and tells him to prosecute the director for betraying her country.
Knowing Ji-Hoon and his passion for justice, we can therefore expect the now-former NIS Director, Yeom Jeong-won, to be in prison for a long time. Since Ozawa’s list of double agents is also made public, Yeom’s crimes and the fact that she’s a mole now seems to be common knowledge, making her fate all the more certain.
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