Bogota: City of the Lost Ending Explained: Who Attacked Kook-hee? What Happens in the End?

Bogota: City of the Lost Ending Explained: The South Korean film ends with Kook-hee’s ruined innocence as he learns the ways of the world that will take him higher in society. As Kook-hee understands the complexities of the world and ends up getting wrapped in the same, we see a boy grow up into someone who should be feared.

Set in the 1990s, as South Korea faces a financial crisis, many individuals make the move to leave the country and find a better life abroad. Among them are Kook-hee and his family, who move to Bogotá and this is their journey to finding a better life. While things don’t always go the way they expect, Kook-hee is determined to change his life and move to the upper echelons of the city with his sheer strength and will.

Bogota: City of the Lost Ending Explained

The film follows Kook-hee as he and his family move to Bogotá after the financial crisis in South Korea in the 1900s. Hoping for a better life, his father takes the family there, hoping that his friend, Park Jang-su, will help them out. However, Jang-su, aka Seargent Park isn’t as easy to get along with in this city and while he doesn’t promise the family anything big, he does offer a job to Kook-hee.

With this, Kook-hee becomes a part of the lower echelon of the society there and works hard each day to get food onto the table. His mother too becomes a seamstress in a company, but his father does nothing but get drunk and fight everyone. Meanwhile, Kook-hee catches the eye of Seargent Park who decides to get him involved in the smuggling business to keep an eye on his underling Jeon Soo-young, and offers him a different role. This becomes his path to growth where he starts off as a naive worker, but soon after, he takes over the business altogether.

As things begin to get more complex, Kook-hee soon finds himself doused in blood as he is targeted by Seargent Park as well. With no one to trust, he begins to grow by himself by making everyone fear him and slowly taking over the business. However, as the years pass new laws are brought into the system, and the people in the Korean Association get fearful for their future. Kook-hee decides to take a legal route and build a shopping mall for the marketeers here, but when things don’t go according to plan again, he takes a new route.

Who Attacked Kook-hee?

When the proposed shopping mall was rejected by Korean market owners due to the influence of Soo-young and others, a sudden attack on Kook-hee changed everything. Kook-hee’s car is bombed and while he narrowly escapes the deadly attack, he is still rushed to the hospital. Meanwhile, the confusion of who led the attack leaves everyone shocked and his enemies find themselves fleeing from the city as soon as possible.

However, Soo-young has yet to escape and finds temporary solace in Dr Hong’s house for some time. While there, he gets a call from Kook-hee who tells him that he is aware that Soo-young did not try to kill him as the one who planted the bomb was none other than Kook-hee. He planned to make everyone fear him and his wrath, just like years back when he killed someone for trying to kill him. This time, this was done for Soo-young and anyone who tried to stop him from doing what he wanted.

Soo-young is shocked and angered by this confession and starts his flurry of curses when he suddenly feels a needle prick the back of his neck. It is Dr Hong, who has also been in cahoots with Kook-hee behind the scenes and helps him get rid of Soo-young. As Soo-young slowly breathes his last, Kook-hee finds himself going through another transformation in this scene.

Later, Kook-hee and Seargent Park take Soo-young to have him buried. Kook-hee leaves the watch Soo-young gifted him during their younger days and closes this chapter of his life, after which he heads back home with Seargent Park.

What Happens in the End?

While heading back, Kook-hee slowly begins to unwind as he explains to Seargent Park why he should be all right with people calling him a cockroach. The only one able to survive all the chaos of the earth is a cockroach, and he should be able to take on this meaning whenever anyone calls him one. As Kook-hee calls life overwhelming, Seargent Park stops the car for a quick break.

Standing on the edge of a cliff in the middle of nowhere, he overlooks the city while Kook-hee stays in the car. Right then, a biker arrives and shoots at Kook-hee but isn’t able to harm him as the car is bulletproof. Seargent Park arrives next to the car and tells that man that the car is bulletproof. He then calls Kook-hee on the phone, as the car is also soundproof, and tells him that the only reason he stayed in Bogotá despite sending his wife and daughter back to South Korea was because of Kook-hee.

He always knew that Kook-hee was different from other Koreans in the city, but he was too different and being different brings trouble. Unable to leave this trouble hanging around Bogotá, he planned to kill him. As he lowers the windows for the biker to take another shot at Kook-hee, he is surprised when Kook-hee shoots at the biker and then at him. Kook-hee has surely grown over the years and learnt to trust no one as he ends Seargent Park’s life without a word.

Finally, covered in more blood, he moves to the cliff that oversees the city, where he has reached the top but has also lost himself.

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Also Read: Bogota: City of the Lost Review: Song Joong-ki’s Film is Realistic, Intense, But Not Everyone’s Cup of Tea