Korean Kanakaraju Movie Ending Explained: Did Kanaka's Spirit Regain His Body?

2026 marks the year when the South Indian movie industry started considering South Korean culture a prominent narrative element. After the Tamil comedy-drama, “Made in Korea,” we have yet another Korea-themed horror comedy, this time Telugu “Korean Kanakaraju”. Directed by Merlapaka Gandhi, with Varun Tej and Ritika Nayak in the lead, “Made in Korea” has this interesting premise which highlights cultural distinction through the plot device of ghost possession. However, a crass take on the said distinction, along with some ludicrous narrative choices and overabundance of masala entertainer elements make this movie quite a tedious watch. Which is a shame, given “Korean Kanakaraju” has genuinely good action elements and decent cinematography in parts.

Spoilers Ahead

How Did Kanaka Get Possessed By Cho Sang-woo’s Spirit?

“Korean Kanakaraju” opens with a dreaded South Korean gangster boss, Cho Sang-woo’s funeral, as he meets his end following a car accident. A merciless, apathetic, violent man, Cho Sang-woo gained his notoriety by killing not only rival gang members, but also cops and civilians during brutal shootouts, and much to his wife, Su-jin’s dismay, he was a corruptive influence on their young son, Min-seok’s life. As their family shaman performs rituals to bind the fearsome gangster’s spirit inside the urn containing his ashes, and through a series of events, the urn ends up reaching the local bar in Anantapura, a village in Andhra Pradesh, India. 

The narrative then shifts the focus to our lead, Kanakaraju, a kind-hearted, fearless bloke who earns his living as a performer in a dance troop, and regularly gets involved in fights with local politician, Chenga Reddy’s nephew, Seenu. To help Kanaka’s younger brother, Prithvi’s business venture and journey abroad, their father took a loan from Chenga Reddy, but despite having paid most of it, their family gets occasionally harassed by Seenu and his goons. Even though Prithvi doesn’t even communicate with his family any longer to inform his whereabouts, Kanaka continues to send his hard earned money to his brother, and as a protective elder brother, took it upon himself to pay off the loan. Kanaka’s best friend, Kishtappa, a photographer by profession, knows his plight and sympathizes with him. The narrative also introduces Chaitra, an accomplished girl working in a local South Korean automobile factory, and Kanaka’s love interest. A K-pop fanatic who named her pet dog, Jungkook, Chaitra dreams of travelling to Korea in near future. Following some misunderstanding and initial hiccups, Kanaka and Chaitra become good friends. But as Chaitra gets the offer to shift to the headquarters of her company in Korea, Kanaka fears losing her forever. 

On one occasion, following a good thrashing by Kanaka, Seenu is instructed by Chenga Reddy to humiliate his family. To do so, he and his goons put up posters mocking Prithvi all around the village. Infuriated, Kanaka decides to go after them and fight Seenu and his men in the local bar, and accidentally, Kanaka ends up consuming  Cho Sang-woo’s ashes by mixing it with drinks. Finding freedom, Cho Sang-woo’s spirit enters his body – causing Kanaka to experience strange sickness in the ensuing days. Flashes of Sang-woo’s memories trouble Kanaka, and one night, as he leaves his home, Seenu tries to beat him to death to take his revenge. However, as Kanaka’s heart races faster, Sang-woo’s spirit takes over his body, and brutally murders Seenu. The next day, under the order of Changa Reddy, local police take Kanaka to him under suspicion of his involvement in Seenu’s death, and Changa Reddy tries to have him killed by having him burned to death inside the police van. Once again, the gangster boss’s spirit takes over Kanaka’s body, and he ruthlessly kills Changa and all his goons. 

Why Do Kanaka And His Friends Go to South Korea?

Despite not being able to retain his memories during the possessed state, Kanaka had this deep seated fear that he is responsible for the deaths of these men. Given the police are accomplices to Chenga’s crooked actions, and they have no proof against Kanaka anyway, they let him go. Kishtappa, whose father is a shaman, learns that something has possessed Kanaka upon seeing him (literally) eat Chaitra’s pet dog. A baffling, if not a bit racist choice of narrative decision which serves absolutely no purpose in the movie. Scared out of his wits, Kishtappa tries to seek help from his shaman father, who is able to bring out the spirit to let it take over Kanaka’s body. However, due to language differences, Kishtappa’s father is unable to help him to learn what the spirit wants. Kishtappa lets Chaitra know about the situation, who is able to translate a spirit possessed by Kanaka’s words. As it turns out, Sang-woo’s restless spirit wants to meet his family for a last time by visiting Korea, after which he will leave Kanaka’s body. According to Kishtappa’s father, it will take twenty one days for Sang-woo’s spirit to completely take over Kanaka’s body, and ten days have already passed. As Sang-woo promises to reward them a huge amount of money if Kanaka and co. fulfil his wish, they agreed to travel to South Korea. 

Once they reach Korea, Kanaka gets involved in a fight with gangsters where Sang-woo’s former right hand man, Bora, was going to be beaten to death. Kanaka once again gets possessed by Sang-woo’s spirit, who kills all the rival gangsters, and Bora recognizes his boss as a possessed Kanaka severs one of his fingers to prove his identity as ‘Four Fingers’ – the notorious alias of Cho Sang-woo. Chaitra and Kishtappa realize it was a grievous mistake to bring Kanaka to Korea, as even though the spirit grants them the money he had promised, it has no intention to leave Kanaka’s body. Cho Sang-woo’s spirit believes that it was destiny that he found freedom with Kanaka’s actions, and doesn’t want to let go of the second chance life has given him. Sang-woo reunites with his family, kills all the rival mob bosses over suspicion of them being involved  in his death, and becomes an ever corruptive influence on Min-seok as he exposes him to violence and his crooked ideals. 

Kanaka occasionally regains control over his body, and a tussle of sorts begins between him and Sang-woo’s spirit, neither of whom are willing to give up control over the body. In the meantime, Kishtappa meets a boy, Gajubomma, young son of a local Indian restaurant owner, Diwakar. Bora has kidnapped Gajubomma and coerced Diwakar to pay the gang a lump sum of money in regular intervals. 

In the meantime, Chaitra tries to help Kanaka control his transition to spirit possessed self, and in the process the duo get quite closer. Kishtappa once again tries to seek help from his father as Sang-woo’s spirit plans to change Kanaka’s appearance to that of his own by plastic surgery, and even though the shaman is not able to bring the spirit out of him, he manages to stop him. Trouble follows as it is revealed that Chaitra and Kishtappa have lost their passports, and they manage to secure a private jet trip to India by paying Diwakar majority of their reward money to help him bribe a politician. 

Bora finds out the identity of the person who orchestrated the accident which resulted in Sang-woo’s death, and much to the shock of Kanaka and his friends, it is revealed Prithvi had him killed. Kanaka and his friends manage to reach Prithvi before Bora and his thugs to protect him, but as Sang-woo once again takes control, he almost kills Prithvi by stabbing him to take revenge. As Prithvi later recuperates in the hospital, he comes clean about his actions to Kanaka and his friends. As it turns out, his business venture in Singapore failed, and he decided to settle in South Korea with his wife, where they had a peaceful life. However, during the Gangnam bus massacre, which was orchestrated by Sang-woo, Prithvi’s pregnant wife was caught up as collateral and lost her life, along with their unborn child’s. A distraught and vengeful Prithvi decided to take revenge by having Sang-woo murdered, and in utter shame towards his actions and grief of losing his family, he couldn’t bring himself to communicate with his family. As Prithvi apologizes to his elder brother, the duo reconciles with an emotional reunion. Kishtappa’s shaman father arrives in South Korea to help Kanaka by performing a risky ritual to settle the body-spirit conflict once and for all. He decides to temporarily ‘kill’ Kanaka, to let the spirit go away, which will allow Kanaka’s spirit a chance to regain his body once and for all. 

Did Kanaka’s Spirit Regain His Body?

The spirit transfer ritual goes south, as Sang-woo’s spirit leaves the body but isn’t willing to let Kanaka go just yet. Moreover, he has learned that his own wife, Su-jin, had helped Prithvi to take his revenge, as she wanted her son to have a safe, loving childhood, which his own father was never going to provide him. Sang-woo’s spirit confronts her, and almost chokes her to death, when Kanaka’s spirit emerges and engages in a fierce battle with him. To be honest, this CGI spirit fight looks cartoonish, and not in a good way either. 

As it seems Sang-woo is going to kill everyone present in the vicinity, Kanaka turns the tide of the battle after being empowered by the blessing of his family deity, Lord Kala Bhairava. An immensely strong Kanaka is able to exterminate Sang-woo’s malevolent spirit once and for all, and finally regains control over his own body. Kanaka returns to his home with his friends, although it remains unknown whether Prithvi returned to his family as well or is he still in a miserable state. Just like how Kanaka evaded accountability of all the murders in his village, none of his gang-related killings in Korea seem to have caused much repercussions either. We also don’t get to know whether Su-jin is able to take her son away from the violent world of his father, or what happened to Bora and the rest of the members of Sang-woo’s gang. 

The movie ends on a humorous note, as Kishtappa celebrates his recent partnership with his Kenyan friends, and it is revealed Kanaka has now drank from the urn of a late Kenyan dictator. Once again, Kanaka is seen to have been possessed by yet another malevolent spirit, prompting Kishtappa to plan a visit to Kenya to free his friend. This set up seems to be a callback to cult classic “Chandni Chawk to China,” which featured such a sequel tease, ultimately amounted to nothing. 

...