(This review contains MAJOR SPOILERS. I advise you to read this only after watching this movie because I want to share my interpretation of the ending.)

After watching Crash Landing On You, I've become a huge fan of Son Ye Jin. So now I'm trying to watch as many of her works as possible. And each time I am not disappointed: when she is onscreen, she becomes that character and no one else. If that is not great acting, I don't know what is.

Anyway, like almost everyone else in the comments section here and elsewhere, I was a little confused by the ending. But upon greater reflection, I realised that it is a great ending. It's being left semi-open on purpose for us to reflect. Here's why.

In the beginning, we see Da-eun in a cafe with her boyfriend and friend, trying to practice for her upcoming job interview for a journalist position. One of the questions asked by Da-eun's friend was about the expiring statute of limitations for Han Chae-min's kidnapping case. To which Da-eun replies that the statute of limitations should be abolished so that the criminals can receive the maximum penalty. Her friend then probes, "Does that mean they deserve the death penalty?" Da-eun pauses in hesitation. Her friend then says that the death penalty could be an outdated practice since Korea hasn't used it since 1997, plus many other countries have since abolished it. Da-eun replies that she thinks that these criminals should still get the death penalty. Note that this is an important foreshadowing for what is going to happen for the rest of the movie.

Throughout the movie, we see Da-eun trying to find out who is the real kidnapper and killer of Han Chae-min, the young boy who died years ago. While she's watching the movie based on the Han Chae-min case with her friends, she hears the real audio footage of the kidnapper and thinks that it could be her own dad, Jung Soo-man. With this suspicion in mind, she follows him and observes his everyday life. What we garner as the audience is that Soo-man is a hard worker and a very gentle and responsible father. Despite him repeatedly denying that he killed the child, we see Da-eun experiencing a lot of internal turmoil when more concrete evidence appears which suggests that her dad Soo-man is, in fact, responsible for kidnapping Chae-min. When the police approach Da-eun, she is forced to pick a side. The problem is, which side? Should she be on the side of truth, which is what she, as a journalist-to-be, embodies? Or should she pick the side of her dad because of her duty as a daughter? After all, it's easy to say that you want justice for the victims and penalty for the criminals when these criminals are people you don't know and don't care about.

[SPOILER ALERT].
In the end, the statute of limitation expires without the kidnapper being caught. However, believing that Soo-man is the killer, Chae-min's father drives a car and purposely crashes into the truck that Soo-man is in, causing both himself and Soo-man to die, and leaving Da-eun seriously injured and potentially crippled for life. In the hospital where Da-eun is recovering, we see the police talking about how she deserves it because she tried to protect Soo-man, who is the kidnapper. But in the ending scene, the audience is told through Da-eun's mom's dying words that Soo-man has committed a crime, which is that Da-eun is not their biological daughter and was in fact kidnapped as a newborn by Soo-man to be raised as their own daughter. Through more flashbacks, we find that Da-eun's uncle, Shim, had known about this and kept evidence of this (Da-eun's hospital ID wristband which says her real name). Furthermore, he has been using this to blackmail Soo-man into giving him money. On one occasion, Shim tells Soo-man that he needs $100k, and suggests for Soo-man to kidnap a child for money since he has already kidnapped a child once. It is implied that Soo-man eventually agreed out of fear that Shim would reveal his secret and cause him to lose Da-eun. After Da-eun's mom dies of an illness, Shim calls the police through a payphone and reports that Da-eun is actually the missing baby Mi-sun from years ago. Maybe he's doing this out of a guilty conscience (which is ironic since he guilt trips Soo-man for money.) Anyway, he has no reason not to. With the death of Da-eun's parents, he no longer has anyone to extort money from. So, Shim is the biggest winner here.

What does this twist mean? From my perspective, it means that the real killer is Shim, and that Soo-man is merely an accomplice who helped to kidnap Chae-min in order to extort money from Chae-min's parents. And after receiving the money, Shim killed Chae-min because he's useless to him now. Because the case has been so highly publicised, with Soo-man being reported in the media as the prime suspect, Soo-man who eventually dies in the car accident will forever be remembered as the killer of Chae-min. So yes, Soo-man kidnapped the child, but he was also telling the truth when he said that he did not do it (kill the child).

Why do I not think that Soo-man is the killer? Judging from how Soo-man is a parent himself who so desperately wanted a child, I don't think he would bear to kill Chae-min, a little boy of Da-eun's age. Furthermore, his acts of parental love for Da-eun, plus the scene in which he tried to prevent a group of young women from drink driving, suggest to me that he understands perfectly how parents feel and is just not the kind who would harm children.

So what is the significance of this ending? To me, it is a critique of the death penalty. Through the car accident which kills Soo-man, the movie has attempted to address the implications of the death penalty in a very creative manner. In other words, the car accident in the movie is a metaphor for the death penalty. By killing the criminal Soo-man, justice seems to be served for the victims and their family, aka Chae-min's dad. However, Chae-min's dad ends up dying in the car crash too. To me, this symbolises how the death penalty, while seemingly serving justice, merely destroys everyone in the end, including the victims and their families.

As for the question about whether the statute of limitations should be abolished, which Da-eun's friends asked at the beginning when they were in the cafe? Even though it has been brought up many times in this movie, whether it should be abolished or not is not the debate here. Clearly, the writer/director has shown us that it should be abolished, because after the statute expires, the criminal walks free. In this case, Shim, which I believe is the real killer, walks free. Even if more evidence miraculously appears that point to Shim being the real killer, he cannot be arrested. On the other hand, for criminals sentenced to the death penalty, their deaths cannot be reversed even if they were later proven innocent. And so this is also the reason why the ending seems to be an open one. It is to show the audience that "it's not over til it's over". But how do we really know when it's over? Who will be the one that says that it's over? God knows. And because there is always a margin for error, perhaps it is better to prevent innocent people from dying, even if it's just one or two of them, than to seek justice for victims by sentencing criminals to death.

What about the reason for abolishing the statute of limitation? My interpretation is that the reason shouldn't be for making criminals serve the maximum penalty (or death penalty), like what Da-eun suggested in the beginning. Instead, it should be abolished to allow law enforcement officers to continue working on old cases so that they can still arrest criminals and get them to pay for their crimes, however late it may be.