The ending of The Stone is a convoluted mess of guns and amulets, with only one survivor (and a half). Netflix’s Thai film tells the story of Ake, a young man who wants to sell an amulet with the Buddha on it, owned by the great Boss Ratt, who died 30 years ago. The amulet now belongs to Ake’s father, an ex-cop who is now bedridden in the hospital. But what Ake discovers is that the amulet market functions pretty much entirely in contradiction to everything the Buddha stands for, a dangerous web of con artists, all trying to make it big, whatever it takes. Once his amulet is declared the real thing, Ake is tortured and beaten up, his dad dies, and the amulet is stolen. But will he be able to get it back himself, or will he end up in a deep hole of danger? What’s the real history behind this amulet? Let’s find out in The Stone’s ending.
Spoiler Alert
Who Stole the Amulet?
Muay takes Ake to the amulet competition and gets the amulet declared as authentic. Her father, with whom she isn’t on good terms, then gives Ake a certificate stating that the amulet is the real deal. But next thing you know, the amulet is missing, and someone’s breaking Ake’s fingers asking for it. This man is Victor, and he’s looking for the amulet too. A little while later, Ake learns that Muay stole the piece, and just like the story she told him about the man who put it in his mouth and then got beaten up, she did the same thing. But this time with caution, and nobody was any the wiser. Ake watches as Muay does a live stream, showing off that she has the Somdej amulet now. Ake tells Victor that he knows where the amulet is and asks to work together to get it. I’m not sure why he thinks it’s a good idea to work with the man who broke his fingers, but Victor agrees for some reason, too.
However, when the two boys go after Muay, it’s already been stolen from her, too. Some goons came up to her car, put her driver (also her bodyguard) in the hospital, and left her with a bruised eye. Victor tries to get Muay to confess any information she has about who might’ve stolen it from her, but she has no idea. The gang decides to visit the collector who has all the other amulets, except the one they’ve lost. At the same time, an old man shows up, but they see him get kidnapped and go after him. This is when they encounter Seng, the first man who tried to scam Ake. I know, a big group; it’s very confusing.
Anyway, with the whole gang here, they learn that the person 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 bunch of other people go after his own daughter and steal the amulet. The old man confesses everything, leaving the gang to draw up a plan on what to do next. Muay suggests that Ake go to her dad pretending to sell the amulet, then the rest of them corner him to give up the original to Ake. Everybody seems to believe Ake’s emotional story, but let’s be clear: everyone wants that amulet, not just because of how much it costs, but because they think it can actually keep them safe.
Was Muay Evil From the Start?
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 at all. This is what we understand from the big breakdown in the last half of the movie, where Muay tells her dad that all she’s ever wanted was to be like him, but he put all his energy into Seng, a good-for-nothing man, just because he wanted a son. Her dad tells her that he put the hit on her because he wanted to show her how dangerous the amulet world was. But he asks her to come back to him, which was the only thing he wanted, though he didn’t realize it till he had her beaten up(wait, what?). It’s all quite stupid, honestly, because suddenly Muay sides with her dad, which means she would never give the amulet back to Ake. But then Ake’s dad’s boss (a high-up cop) shows up and asks for the amulet because it’s evidence in Boss Ratt’s murder case. We’ll get to that in a bit, though. When it comes to Muay, she isn’t a bad person; she just wants to make a name for herself and be loved by her father.
Who Is Victor?
The big reveal during The Stone’s ending is that Victor is the son of Boss Ratt and was in the car when Ake’s father shot Ratt in the head, right in front of his eyes, 30 years ago. Ake’s dad then stole the amulet from Victor’s mouth (ah, a trick that was around even 30 years ago) and then gave him up to an orphanage. Victor grew up with revenge on his mind, so it’s most likely he killed Ake’s dad. Meanwhile, the real person who wanted Ratt dead was Ake’s dad’s boss, who is now pretending to take the amulet as evidence, but Sunthorn calls him out for being a fake, because the statute of limitations on Ratt’s murder ran out 10 years ago. So it looks like Ake’s dad stopped being a cop because he stole the amulet that his boss wanted Ratt dead for. So when Ake introduced the amulet in the market again, everybody woke up and came after this young man who didn’t know a thing.
Victor definitely deserves justice and shouldn’t have died at the end of the film. Honestly, it would’ve been interesting to see Ake becoming a victim of his father’s misdeed and Victor being the only survivor. I never found myself rooting for Ake despite all the emotional drama. Sure, all he wanted was to help his dad with the money he got from the amulet, but then he wouldn’t have been greedy about it and tried to get more money for it. He could’ve just sold it to Seng and saved his dad.
How Does Ake Survive?
The easiest explanation, or the reasoning the movie wants us to believe, is that he had the amulet in his mouth, so he survived the multiple guns going off without a single wound. However, a better ending would’ve been to see him be the only survivor without any amulets at all. The amulets made everybody greedy, leading to their deaths, so are they really protecting anybody? I wouldn’t say so. Ake is the greediest of the whole lot, because despite learning that his father killed a man for it, he continued to go after the amulet, claiming it was his. But it was never his; it was always Ratt and his family’s. But instead of protecting them, it ruined their lives entirely. In The Stone’s ending, the collector immediately calls Ake, asking him for the amulet, since he was the only one who survived the violence, and we’re left wondering if he’ll sell the amulet for 100 million baht or not. I’d say that Ake will sell him a fake and keep the original, because he still believes it’s his, and additionally, it saved him from the massacre. Ake does need money, because it looks like he’s got nothing for himself, so I definitely think he’s going to use this as an opportunity to make some money and then run. He now also has enough information to tell what is real and fake, I guess, so it’s almost as if he turned out to be the big villain at the end of the movie. All this just for a piece of stone?
