The ending of The Stone is a tangled web of weapons and amulets, with only one (and a half) survivor. The Thai Netflix film tells the story of Ake, a young man who wants to sell an amulet bearing the image of Buddha, owned by the great Boss Ratt, who died 30 years ago. The amulet now belongs to his father, a former police officer who is lying in the hospital. But what Ake discovers is that the amulet market operates in complete contradiction to everything Buddha stands for: a dangerous network of con artists seeking success at all costs.
Once his amulet is declared authentic, Ake is tortured and beaten, his father dies, and the amulet is stolen. But will he manage to get it back, or will he end up in a deep abyss of danger? What is the true story of this amulet? Let's find out in the ending of The Stone. Muay Thai takes Ake to the amulet competition and has it declared authentic. Her father, with whom she doesn't get along, gives Ake a certificate proving that the amulet is authentic. But suddenly, the amulet has disappeared, and someone is breaking Ake's fingers for it.
Directors: Pae Arak Amornsupasiri, Vuthipong Sukhanindr
Writers: Pae Arak Amornsupasiri, Kittikun Chattongkum, Paween Purijitpanya
Stars: Jaonaay Jinjett Wattanasin, Korranid Laosubinprasoet, Itkron Pungkiatrussamee
This man is Victor, and he's also after the amulet. Soon after, Ake learns that Muay stole the piece, and just as she told him about the man who put it in her mouth and then got beaten up, she did the same. But this time cautiously, and no one noticed. Ake watches as Muay broadcasts live, bragging that he now has Somdej's amulet. Ake tells Victor that she knows where the amulet is and asks him to work together to get it.
I don't understand why he thinks it's a good idea to collaborate with the man who broke her fingers, but Victor, for some reason, agrees too. However, when the two boys go after Muay, she's stolen it too. Some thugs approached her car, took her driver (and bodyguard) to the hospital, and left her with a black eye. Victor tries to get Muay to confess any information she has about who might have stolen it, but she has no idea. The gang decides to visit the collector who has all the other amulets, except the one they lost. At the same time, an old man shows up, but they see him kidnapped and go after him. That's when they run into Seng, the first man who tried to scam Ake. I know, a big group; it's very confusing.
Anyway, with the whole gang there, they discover that the one who stole the amulet was none other than Sunthorn, Muay's father and the biggest name in the amulet industry. Sunthorn had the old man and a group of others chase his own daughter and steal the amulet. The old man confesses everything, leaving the gang to come up with a plan. Muay suggests that Ake go to her father, pretending to sell the amulet, and then the rest corner him to get him to hand over the original. Everyone seems to believe Ake's heartfelt story, but let's be clear: everyone wants that amulet, not just because of its price, but because they believe it will actually keep them safe.
I don't know if Muay can be considered evil as such. She's just trying to prove herself to her patriarchal father, who doesn't appreciate her or care about her dreams. This is what we understand from the big breakdown in the last half of the film, where Muay tells her father that all she's ever wanted was to be like him, but that he put all his energy into Seng, a useless man, just because he wanted a son. Her father tells her he killed her because he wanted to show her how dangerous the amulet world was. But he asks her to come back to him, which was all he wanted, although he didn't realize it until he had her beaten (what?). It's a silly thing, really, because Muay suddenly sides with her father, which means she'd never return the amulet to Ake. But then Ake's father's boss (a high-ranking police officer) shows up and asks for the amulet because it's evidence in the Boss Ratt murder case. But more on that in a moment. As far as Muay goes, she's not a bad person; she just wants to make a name for herself and be liked by her father.
The big reveal at the end of The Stone is that Victor is Chief Ratt's son, and he was in the car when Ake's father shot him in the head, right in front of his eyes, 30 years ago. Ake's father stole the amulet from Victor's mouth (ah, a trick that existed even 30 years ago) and gave it to an orphanage. Victor grew up with revenge on his mind, so he most likely killed Ake's father. Meanwhile, the one who really wanted Ratt dead was Ake's father's boss, who is now pretending to take the amulet as evidence, but Sunthorn accuses him of being an imposter, since the statute of limitations on Ratt's murder expired 10 years ago.
So it seems that Ake's father stopped being a cop because he stole the amulet his boss wanted Ratt killed for. So when Ake put the amulet back on the market, everyone woke up and went after this young man who knew nothing. Victor definitely deserves justice and shouldn't have died at the end of the movie. Honestly, it would have been interesting to see Ake become a victim of his father's misdeeds and Victor become the sole survivor. I never felt rooted for Ake despite all the emotional drama. Sure, he only wanted to help his father with the money he got from the amulet, but then he wouldn't have been greedy and tried to get more money for it. He could have sold it to Seng and saved his father.
The simplest explanation, or the reasoning the movie would have us believe, is that he had the amulet in his mouth, so he survived the multiple gunshots without a single wound. However, a better ending would have seen him as the sole survivor without amulets. The amulets made everyone greedy, which led to their deaths, so do they actually protect anyone? I wouldn't say so. Ake is the greediest of all, because despite learning that his father killed a man for it, he continued to pursue it, claiming it was his. But it never was; It was always Ratt and his family's.
But instead of protecting them, he completely ruined their lives. At the end of The Stone, the collector immediately calls Ake to ask for the amulet, since it was the only one to survive the violence, and we're left wondering if he'll sell it for 100 million baht. I'd say Ake will sell him a fake and keep the original, because he still believes it's his and, besides, it saved him from the massacre. Ake needs money, because he doesn't seem to have any for himself, so I definitely think he'll use this opportunity to make some money and then run away. He also now has enough information to distinguish between real and fake, I guess, so it's almost as if he turns out to be the big villain at the end of the movie. All this just for a piece of stone?
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