Grudge (2021) summary and ending explained

Netflix’s latest Turkish thriller, Grudge aka Kin, revolves around the life of a police officer, Harun Celiktan, in Istanbul as he becomes the target of a lethal and vengeful conspiracy.

The plot for Grudge kicks off with Chief Inspector Harun Celiktan receiving the Police Officer of the Year award and looking at a major promotion in the near future. He returns to headquarters to a grand welcome and later goes out to celebrate his success with his team.

Post a merry drinking and dinner session, Harun gets into a taxi and dozes off. When he wakes up, he notices the cab driver speeding in the wrong direction and a tussle ensues. The mysterious man stops the cab in an abandoned spot and tries to stab Harun, who, in return accidentally kills him.

He decides to report the incident but gets a call from his friend and Chief of Police, Cevat Tunahanli, about keeping a low profile due to his impending promotion. This makes him change his mind and he proceeds to remove his finger prints from the vehicle and goes home.

Next morning things take a turn for the worse when the body of the murdered cab driver is found hanging from a crane opposite the Police HQ. Harun and his team reach the spot and one of his officers, Tuncay, investigates the abandoned taxi. He finds a golden tie-pin in the cab which he recognises as the same one the team presented to Harun the night before.

Tuncay doesn’t know what to make of it and decides to keep the find to himself. Meanwhile, Harun deals with the aftermath of his actions and tries to make sense of how the body got to the crane. The team get vigorous with the investigation due to pressure from Cevat and seek out surveillance footage of the driver’s route.

Harun subtly steals the footage that shows him getting into the cab which Tuncay notices. At the same time they manage to pinpoint the location of the person seen with the body near the crane and narrow in on his location. Their suspect makes a run for it and is chased by Harun atop a nearby building.

On the roof, the perp confesses that he was given the job of hanging the corpse on the crane by an anonymous caller and the driver was already dead when he found him. Before Harun can ask who called him, the suspect tries to attack him and out of reflex, Harun shoots him in the leg. Unfortunately, he loses his balance and falls to his death.

Back at HQ, Cevat gives them hell for letting the man die and orders to confirm if he was the killer by matching his DNA samples to those found on the driver’s corpse. Meanwhile, Tuncay confesses to Harun about him finding the missing footage but tells him that he’s gonna ignore it and hands the tie-pin back.

Initially thinking of turning himself in, Harun finally sees an opening when one of his officers mentions the presence of an illegal drug in the deceased’s blood work. He carries out his own investigation and discovers that an actress, Gul Cankir was infamous for buying the said drug.

Further probes reveal that she owns a place called Macca Club where Harun discovers startling piece of information. Does he manage to crack the case?

Grudge ending explained in detail:

Gul surrenders

In a turn of events, Gul Cankir shows up at the police station to turn herself in as she confesses to being the crane killer. She is held in the interrogation room and refuses to speak to anyone but Harun.

When he shows up they speak in private and based on his findings at Macca Club, he realises that Gul is the daughter of the man who was wrongfully accused of poisoning seven people many years ago and sent to jail where he was murdered.

Harun had worked that case alongside Cevat and a few other officers who have already been murdered. Gul now presents Harun with a choice — he can either assist her in murdering Cevat or have the footage of him murdering the cab driver released to the public.

She gives him time until nightfall and puts Harun in a fix. He doesn’t reveal the details of their conversation to his team or to Cevat but still urges that they keep her in custody. Unconvinced, Cevat orders another officer form the team, Yadigar, to interrogate her but he comes up with nothing.

Assuming that it’s just a ploy on Gul’s part to get famous, they let her go. When Harun finds out, he orders Tuncay and another officer to tail her as he figures out his next step. Meanwhile, Gul tricks her chasers and makes her way to the athletics centre where Cevat has gone for a swim.

She calls Harun to let him know that she’s planted a bomb in Cevat’s car. Shocked to hear this, he drives as fast as he can to save his friend but before he can, the car is blown to smithereens.

Gul also releases the footage of the murder to the public, proving Harun guilty.

Tuncay’s secret

Meanwhile Yadigar delves deeper into the soup poisoning case from years ago and discovers a shocking truth. He calls Tuncay to stop chasing Gul and meet him at an undisclosed location.

There, it is revealed that Tuncay is actually Gul’s brother and the duo spun this lethal web together. The confrontation doesn’t end well as Tuncay fatally shoots Yadigar and makes his way to Harun’s house.

Elsewhere, Harun finally manages to confront Gul but finds overdosed on drugs and slowly dying. She tells him the truth about Tuncay and how their father’s arrest destroyed their entire family. Shocked on realising the truth about his junior officer, he is lost for words.

At the same time he receives a call from Tuncay but it is his own son Aslan on the line. Realising what has happened, he panics and rushes to save him.

Confrontation

Harun reaches the park next to his house and notices Aslan playing video-games in a car. Tuncay finally shows up and berates him for dismantling his family.

He confesses that the people who were poisoned all those years ago were lowlife criminals who used to abuse his father for fun. Unable to take this injustice anymore, it was Tuncay who poisoned the soup and screamed at the police that his father was innocent.

As Harun comes to terms with the truth, the police surround the area, asking him to turn himself in for the taxi driver’s murder. On the other hand, Tuncay urges him to kill him so that the police can shoot Harun in return in front of his own son.

Guilty, surrounded, and tired, Harun puts down the gun and surrenders as Tuncay pulls out a gun and commits suicide. Harun sobs over his body and realises his mistake as he is taken away in front of Aslan.

This situation puts Harun in the exact same position as Tuncay and Gul’s father when he was arrested in front of them. The film ends with both the brother and sister deceased as their quest for vengeance is fulfilled.


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