Thirst (2009)
(director: Chan-wook Park; starring Kang-ho Song and Ok-bin Kim)
South Korean cinema has produced some of the most original and inventive films in the last decade, as well as possibly some of the most graphic, and the numerous re-imaginings of established western genre tropes have dutifully earned directors such as Chan-wook Park and Joon-ho Bong strong fan followings. Although I will note that whenever someone eats a live octopus in front of the camera and goes on to a fight scene where the protagonist takes on 20 henchmen armed with only a hammer and filmed in one continuous shot, you’re all but guaranteed a cult fanbase regardless of if there’s any depth to the story.
Already famous for his ‘vengeance’ trilogy (of which Oldboy, the film I referred to above, was a part of) Chan-wook Park turned his attention to vampires with 2009’s Thirst (Bakjwi), a genre that has been on fire in terms of popularity in recent years. His protagonist, Kang-ho Song as a Catholic-Korean priest who volunteers for a medical experiment to help find a cure for inflicted populations in Africa, is transformed into a creature of the night after he is unknowingly given a blood transfusion containing traces of vampire DNA, setting the bar extremely high by promising a dialogue on the nature of faith and good intentions with evil consequences (Priest Sang-hyeon asks whether his vampirism sentences him to eternal damnation in hell after he dies despite it being through no fault of his own; he risked his life to help people, and now he must steal blood from a comatose hospital patient’s intravenous drip.)
However, Park never completely follows through on this promised trajectory (much to many people’s disappointment, myself included) but instead chooses to take the story in some more unpredictable directions. While it might not always be clear where the movie is going or what point it is trying to make (although watching Sang-hyeon increasingly give in to vampire vice while idiosyncratically trying to maintain his Catholic virtues remains a theme throughout the film’s duration), I never found that to be so much of a problem as some reviewers did; this is one of those films where you completely enter it’s universe and live through the characters on screen, uncognizant of the external offscreen reality. Another delight of Thirst is watching the dynamic character change of Ok-bin Kim’s supporting Tae-joo over the course of the film; starting as a shy, reticent and slightly abused young wife to the family that adopted and raised Sang-hyeon’s mentally challenged son, she later reveals a daredeviling, extraverted streak as she becomes Sang-hyeon’s secret lover, before transforming into the gleefully wild-eyed force of deception and destruction. This is one of those movies where just when you might expect it to be wrapping up it introduces a whole new chapter, and as I mentioned the depth to the characters and shifting plot need to be seen for one’s self. Personally, while it falls far short of living up to the standards set by Let the Right One In, this was definitely one of my more enjoyable filmgoing experiences within the past year. That Thirst hasn’t even ranked as South Korea’s most talked-about 2009 release only makes me really eager to see Joon-ho Bong’s “Mother“, whenever it will be released.
(reviewed 12/16/09)
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