One rainy day, law school student Jyn Hong is on his way home when he sees his mother on the other side of the street. Just as he's about to cross, his friend calls him. He answers the phone and slows his pace.
He doesn't notice the motorcyclist speeding toward his mother. The man attempting to snatch her purse grabs the strap, but she refuses to let go and is dragged several meters along the asphalt. Eventually, the thief loses control and falls off the bike.
Enraged, he pulls out a knife and stabs the woman multiple times. He then drops the weapon and disappears from the scene. Another man picks up the knife, but by the time Jin Hong notices his mother lying on the ground, no one else is around.
He embraces her and screams, not yet realizing there's nothing more that can be done. Sometime later, a funeral ceremony is held. It deeply affects Jin Hong's sister.
7 years pass. Jin Hong has become a prosecutor. Though still young, he's known for being incorruptible and ruthless toward criminals, something not all of his colleagues appreciate.
But Jin Hong believes justice is more important than money. After a court hearing, he sees 11 missed calls from his sister. When he calls her back, she tells him something unbelievable.
Their mother has returned and is sitting beside her watching TV. On his way home, Jin Hong calls a doctor to arrange treatment, suspecting that her medication has stopped working, but when he arrives, he really does see his mother alive and seemingly healthy. As soon as she sees him, she rushes into the kitchen to cook, knowing her beloved son must be hungry.
Suddenly, a local pastor enters with several parishioners who've heard of the miracle. They pray and joyfully greet the woman. Some ask if she saw Christ and what he looks like.
Jin Hong tries to remind them that his mother had died. At that moment, she turns to him and attacks him with a knife. The pastor takes the blow while others restrain the woman to keep her from hurting her son.
Then she begins to destroy everything around her. People cover her with a blanket, immobilizing the frenzied woman. Later, medics take her to a clinic, followed quickly by police and national security officers.
Jin Hong attends the briefing and learns that similar cases have occurred worldwide. Victims of unsolved murders have come back to life. They explain how they died and reveal where their bodies are buried.
But more importantly, they hunt down and kill their murderers, after which their own bodies vanish in flames. These resurrected victims only appear when the killer escaped punishment. Witnesses have begun calling them by that name.
Jin Hongs mother is the first resurrected victim in Korea, but today she returned and attacked her own son. This shocking fact draws the attention of the officers. Now, Jin Hong becomes the prime suspect in orchestrating the murder.
Meanwhile, a woman named Lee Su, a forensic psychologist, arrives in Korea, but Jin Hong refuses to let the case slip from his control and starts investigating on his own. One intelligence officer reveals that so far there have only been 89 resurrected victims worldwide. Li Su learns that Jyn Hong always pushes for the death penalty in court.
She also discovers that all the case files regarding his mother's death are in his possession. He requested them years ago and has been conducting a private investigation ever since. To the agents, this seems suspicious.
Jin Hong explains that the case was full of inconsistencies from the start. Based on CCTV footage, the police concluded there was only one perpetrator and the victim's DNA was found on his hands. But Jin Hong located another witness who claimed there were two people at the scene and gave a description that didn't match the suspect.
Jyn Hong also tracked the motorcycle and identified a wanted Chinese criminal who paid with a Chinese card and had a noticeable accent. The man had three motorcycle thefts on his record, but after 45 days, a man's body was pulled from the river. His DNA matched the evidence found at the scene, so the police concluded the killer had died.
However, the dead man wasn't Chinese. Jin Hong traced everyone who had left for China and requested the list from Interpol. But the strangest part of the case is that Jin Hong received a large payout from his mother's life insurance, raising suspicions that he might have staged the crime himself.
Liu suspects this is why he took the case file to cover up his involvement. She demands the addresses of witnesses and his call history from that day. Jin Hong recalls how his mother would always greet him at home and cook something delicious.
He remembers how he kept asking her for more money because he was in school and couldn't support himself. And she always did her best to please him. He remembers the day he lingered on the street, distracted by an empty phone conversation, an action that ultimately led to his mother dying in his arms.
Later, he contacts his sister, who reveals she plans to take their mother to Thailand. She then confesses to her husband that their mother had often appeared in her dreams, always asking her to keep her belongings safe because she would be coming back soon. And that's exactly what happened.
Meanwhile, the intelligence officer and Jin Hong visit his mother. She lies unconscious. There's no metabolic activity and she appears to be in a coma.
The officer suggests it's as if God is allowing the victims to return in order to seek justice. If the public found out, it could lead to chaos. Jin Hong is surprised, pointing out that the internet is full of such videos.
The officer reminds him that there are also plenty of UFO videos, but no one believes those either. Jin Hong, however, doubts the intelligence agency knows about every resurrected victim. Surely there must be some who failed to get revenge.
He proposes a theory. If his mother didn't finish him off, that must mean someone else is the real killer, and she'll go after him next. Meanwhile, Li Su and her assistant arrive at Jin Hong's sister's home.
The sister shares that their father died when they were children, and their mother used to drive a truck to feed the family. Jin Hong, as a teenager, was reckless and spent his nights in bars while their mother supported him financially. She confesses that intelligence agents have already visited them and confiscated everything related to the resurrected mother.
She's been on psychotropic medication for years. While her brother doesn't touch alcohol, he blames himself for their mother's death and tries to live up to her expectations. At the same time, Jin Hong and an investigator head to Chinatown after receiving a tip about the arrival of a fugitive who had fled to China 7 years ago.
The prosecutor pays for the information and is given the suspect's address. Li Su learns of this and orders surveillance on the prosecutor. Jin Hong arrives at the suspect's house and tricks him into opening the door.
The man attacks him, but realizing he can't overpower Jin Hong, tries to flee. The prosecutor chases him through the streets. After a long pursuit, Liu's team steps in and apprehends the suspect.
As Jin Hong emerges from the alley, he suddenly sees a little girl who seems unfazed by the rain and stares at him intently. Back at the intelligence department, CIA colleagues arrive to share new data. It turns out resurrected victims exact revenge near the place they were killed.
They appear during rainstorms because their bodies are 90% water. Their iron levels are significantly higher than that of living humans. When they enact their revenge, a strong magnetic storm occurs and they combust.
But the Korean case is unique. The woman came back but didn't get revenge. They attempt to interrogate Jin Hong's mother.
She admits that she returned to avenge her death. Her son didn't kill her, but he caused her to die. Then she utters a man's name.
Meanwhile, Jin Hong confirms that the DNA of the man he captured today matches the sample found on his mother's hands. Lee Su is interrogating the suspect, but he refuses to confess to the murder. Korean authorities learn that he's wanted in his home country for two murders.
If deported, he'll be executed in 2 months, but in Korea, he could sit in prison for up to 20 years before his sentence is carried out. Suddenly, Jin Hong enters the room. As Lee Su is being told that the resurrected woman had a second life insurance policy, the prosecutor begins his own line of questioning.
It turns out that on the day the insurance was activated, a man and his daughter died in a traffic accident. The crash occurred in the same district where Jyn Hong and his family lived. The killer finally confesses to Jin Hong that there was another strange man at the crime scene.
He kept hitting the woman even after the attacker had stopped. But the suspect can't say more as intelligence agents suddenly arrive and take him away despite the prosecutor's protests. The second asalent has not been found and the forensic results were falsified.
Meanwhile, Lee Su discovers that Jyn Hongs mother took out the insurance policy herself, but asked not to tell her son. The forensic expert who worked on the case 7 years ago has since moved to the US. She begins to suspect that the strange car accident is somehow linked to the mother's death.
But how? All over the world, witnesses describe how resurrected victims burst into flames and vanish before their eyes. Later, the suspect is brought to Jin Hong's mother's hospital room.
The woman who had been in a coma-like state opens her eyes. As the medical equipment malfunctions, she rises, walks toward the man, and with a single motion snaps his neck. She then collapses.
The story shifts to 7 years ago when the forensic expert and a police officer helping him dump the suspect's body into the river where it would later be found, leading authorities to conclude it was a voluntary death. In the present, Jin Hong tracks down the expert, but he refuses to answer any questions, insisting the case is closed. Meanwhile, Liu shows the prosecutor's sister a photo of a little girl who died 9 years ago.
She explains that their mother secretly gave her life insurance money to the girl's father, who also died in that car accident. Suddenly, footage from a surveillance camera surfaces showing that this very man was the one who finished off Jin Hong's mother. It turns out he too was a resurrected victim who returned from the dead to avenge his own death by killing her.
And like the others, he later burst into flames. Apparently, the mother had been responsible for the accident that killed the man and his daughter. But for some reason, she moved one of the bodies to another location.
She had already taken revenge on the Chinese man who attacked her and now seemed likely to disappear soon. At that moment, Jin Hong is informed that they've identified the name of the officer who was on duty the night the man and his daughter died. He had resigned shortly afterward, but Li Su reaches the man first only to find a farewell letter on his desk in his lifeless body.
She gives the letter to Jyn Hong and confesses that she had suspected him. After all, he hesitated at the crosswalk that day, almost as if he had been waiting for his mother to be attacked. Jyn Hong reads the letter.
The officer recalls how 9 years ago he responded to a call. The father was drunk, the daughter terrified. Unable to intervene, he left.
Later, Jin Hongs mother came, offered him a bribe, and begged him to blame a stolen truck on her. He agreed. The next morning, the girl's body was found.
Fearing consequences, he covered it up. But the dead girl began haunting his dreams. He took his own life, naming Jyn Hong as the real culprit, though Jyn Hong remembers nothing.
Trying to understand, Jyn Hong calls his sister. She says even the police suspect she and their mother killed someone that night, but she's unsure. A friend reminds him he was blackout drunk and ran off.
At the bar, Jin Hong starts recalling. Wasted. He had stumbled outside and noticed the vegetable vendor's truck, the man who had insulted his mother.
Now in the present, he sees the girl again boarding a bus. His mother is wheeled out into the rain, but doesn't vanish. Lights explode.
She walks away. Jin Hong follows the bus, crashes his car, and finds a truck to continue the chase. Memories return.
He had driven the vendor's truck drunk, crashed into a police robot, and later his mother found the dead girl in the vehicle. When she tried to return it, the girl's father appeared. She fled, hitting his motorcycle.
He died instantly. To protect her son, she paid off the officer. By morning, Jin Hong remembered nothing.
The full memory hits him as he crashes again into another police robot. Trapped under the overturned truck, he sees the dead girl approach. She lights a match near leaking fuel.
Jin Hong braces for death, but his mother's scream interrupts. She kneels before the girl, begging for her son's life, blaming herself. She slams her head to the ground in desperation.
Jin Hong escapes the wreck and pleads for forgiveness. Stepping into the path of a truck, he prepares to die, but the girl bursts into flames. The truck explodes, throwing Jin Hong aside.
The vehicle passes him. He looks up and sees his mother's body engulfed in fire. Later, Jin Hong stands trial for the girl's death.
He confessed willingly, ready to face justice, refusing to appeal. He admits his mother also died because of him because he hesitated, ignoring her warnings. Lee Sue and the intelligence officer reflect.
This time, the resurrected victims brought not justice, but forgiveness. The film ends.
