This article discusses the ending of the Netflix film Kate, so it contains spoilers.
Ready Steady Cut Film Critic, M.N. Miller, said Kate, “…will make for a killer double feature with Netflix’s Gunpowder Milkshake.”
Kate is a hitwoman who has been trained by her handler/father figure (is there any other kind?), Varrick (Woody Harrelson). He is like a manager. He books the hits, and she performs them. They only have one rule: They don’t kill kids. Of course, in her first bat up in Osaka, we watch her hesitate as she is asked to place a bullet in between the eyes of a bratty pubescent teenager, Ani (Miku Patricia Martineau). The job goes horribly wrong. In the sense that the kid’s head is not ripped off like the top of a Slim Jim and she kills the kid’s handler instead. Was Kate supposed to kill Ani, the handler, or wait for the boss, Kijima, to get out of the car?
Later, she apologizes to Varrick and promises to make it up to him. Of course, she never gets the chance. You see, when you take a “Deuce Bigelow Male Gigolo” home from a bar (played by Michiel Huisman of The Flight Attendant or perhaps better known for Anna Kendrick really wanting to see his…), you better make sure the guy’s not poisoning your drink. That’s what he does. She now has 24 hours to live and carries around six shots of adrenaline to help avenge her own death before it actually happens.
Netflix film Kate – ending explained
After hours of killing dozens of yakuza members, Kate finds the man she presumed was responsible for her impending death, Kijima. Was it for the killing in Osaka, she asks? No, he responds. He has nothing to gain by killing Kate. The older man says that his brother, Kenji, ordered the hit to gain more power within the criminal organization. He was betrayed by his family, just like Kate. He tosses evidence towards her feet, revealing that Varrick and Renji poisoned her because she couldn’t live to tell the tale (or let Kate walk away into retirement).
Of course, Varrick pulls up to tell Ani all about it. It’s revealed Varrick killed Kate’s parents years ago and took her in. She paid her way by being trained to be a killer. Kate, sparring the older man, finds Ani upset with her. Varrick reveals that Kate left Ani without a family by killing most of them the last seven years. Even if Ani is mad at her, Kate knows she has to protect her from Varrick doing what he did to her.
Varrick takes Ani with her to the top floor of Kenji’s hideout. Kijima and Kate storm the tower, along with 20 or so of the bossman’s Yakuza. The older man kills his brother for hiring Varrick and Kate to try and kill him. Kate has a standoff with the only family she has ever known. Both with pistols in hand and V holding it tight into Ani’s temple, they both draw, shooting each other in the stomach. Varrick admires her handy work, passes away, and Kate walks out into the night sky balcony leaning on Ani. She collapses to the floor, with Ani holding her. She passes away, just not peacefully.
What does it all mean? A great book called Crazy Like Us explains the toxic spreading of Western Ideology in Eastern countries. Kate is a metaphor for this theory. Just as Kenji was influenced by Western greed, the hitwoman represents the rotting of eastern traditions by spreading Western values into cultures they don’t understand. There was no such thing as anorexia in Hong Kong before it was introduced by westernized medicine in the above book. Was the concept of greed, power, and lack of respect in the Yakuza before it was introduced into their organization?
Kate became the weapon and then the solution to create more balance in the world she had been infiltrating.
What did you think of the ending of the Netflix film Kate? Comment below.
