It's been a big year for Korean-made dystopian dramas on Netflix. In their latest series, Netflix snagged "Train to Busan" director Yeon Sang-ho for the terrifying supernatural world of "Hellbound." Based on a digital comic written by Yeon Sang-ho and Choi Kyu-seok called "The Hell," "Hellbound" is about a nation learning to deal with a prophecy that unfortunately comes true, where people allegedly deemed as sinners are condemned to bloody damnation, pursued by horrific creatures that brutally murder the sinner before zapping their souls to Hell. Profiting off of the fear the nation finds themselves consumed by are two different religious cults that rise up and gain power for their own iniquitous means.
The first group is a religious organization called the New Truth Society led by the Chairman Jeong Jin-soo (Yoo Ah-in), that have been tracking the emergence of the monsters, believing them to be angels making society a better place by ridding the world of sinners. The New Truth Society feels like a standard church, in contrast to the religious cult known as The Arrowhead, a group of violent radicals not unlike QAnon. While both groups believe those being killed are being done in by divine retribution, The New Truth believes the arrival of these monsters to be a motivator to live a more righteous life, which seems kind compared to The Arrowhead who see these actions as a call to arms to rid the world of sinners. Let's get inside the mind of the religious cult and explain what's going on with The Arrowhead.
What Does Their Name Mean?
One of the major figures of The Arrowhead is a livestreamer donning neon makeup known as Skull Face. He might as well be a stand-in for other right-wing extremists, and his furious rantings serve as a call to action for Arrowhead members. During one of his viral rants, he explains the name of the cult. "When God decides to release an arrow, we, the Arrowhead, should fly and hit a target," he shouts. His streams are marching orders, as anyone that he targets during his live streams are tracked down by Arrowhead members and brutally bludgeoned with metal pipes and baseball bats.
With these beasts magically appearing, killing, and disappearing, society is looking for something to help them make sense of it all. News media and law enforcement fail to accept the otherworldly nature of the situation, instead trying to treat it like any other homicide story. That's not good enough for a terrified nation, which has led many of them to follow the beliefs of the Arrowhead, because even if their answers are wrong, at least they have answers to give.
What Do The Arrowhead Want?
Where The New Truth wants the acknowledgement and acceptance that people are being killed due to their sins, the Arrowhead's motivations are less than clear. They organize predominantly online, and don't have much structure apart from answering to Skull Face's aggressive livestreams, which appeal directly to the panicked survival instincts of his followers. Skull Face frequently targets people "sinners" without any actual evidence, but his followers listen without any questioning. It's so hard not to view this cult as another version of Q Anon with someone like Skull Face as a stand-in for an Alex Jones type, but that's an admittedly Western-washing read of the Korean-made show.
Much like "Train to Busan," the real horrors of "Hellbound" are not the supernatural monsters, but the ways people react to their presence in the wake of fear. The Arrowhead are terrifying not because of their ultra-violent actions, but because they look all-too familiar to the extremists we know already exist.
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The post What is The Arrowhead in Hellbound? The Religious Cult Explained appeared first on /Film.
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