Anything Park Chan-wook creates is guaranteed to be unique, brilliant, and very twisted at a minimum. Well, anything that isn’t I’m a Cyborg at least. Park’s newest film titled Thirst is a vampire romance-erotic-thriller-dark comedy-drama — yes, that is a lot of adjectives — inspired by the 19th century French novel by Emile Zola titled Therese Raquin. Park creates a uniquely Korean, and uniquely Park, vision of the vampire mythos and asks the audience to explore the dilemma of a Catholic priest discovering himself having a thirst for blood and the moral and spiritual crisis that would develop. Park delivers on the elements you would hope but definitely falls short of masterpiece quality like Oldboy or even that of Lady Vengeance. Heavily bloated with a narrative that often loses itself much less the audience, Thirst desperately needed another trip through the cutting room. It crawls when it should be running but luckily brings it back home before losing the audience completely. As negative as it may sound the positives definitely outweigh the negatives and another volume has without a doubt been added to the dark and twisted Zeitgeist of Park Chan-wook film.
Check out the full review after the jump
Sang-Hyeon (Song Kang-Ho) was a well liked and respected priest from a small town who did most of his work at the local hospital. He volunteered for a project to discover a vaccine for a deadly virus called EV (short for Emmanuel Virus). He entered the project selflessly under the full understanding that he would most likely die from the virus and was not expecting to return home. Sang-Hyeon would soon confront his inevitable painful death from the effects of the virus. Just before he is officially pronounced dead by the medical team attempting to save his life he receives a blood transfusion. He is revived seconds after his death in what most see as an act of God. Ironically, what saved him was far from God. Sang-Hyeon returns to Korea still fighting symptoms of the virus he was infected with. He reluctantly — and very slowly — discovers that he has an unexplainable and unstoppable thirst for human blood. In addition to the thirst, drinking blood instantly heals him of the symptoms of the virus. The blood that he received in his dieing moments was apparently infected with something else. It takes Sang-Hyeon a while to discover the true nature of his ailments and ultimately label himself as the vampire that he has become.
The female lead Tae-Ju (Kim Ok-Bin) is found trapped in a meaningless and loveless marriage to a young man that she grew up with basically as a brother after being adopted as a young orphan girl. Tae-Ju stuck in her torment works mindlessly around the house and appears completely disconnected from the world. Sang-Hyeon, a childhood friend of Tae-Ju’s husband, begins frequenting their house for a weekly game of Mahjong and it sparks Tae-Ju’s suppressed personality and desires she buried in herself long ago. Sang-Hyeon being already at odds with his own morals, lust, and the nature of his new found condition eventually breaks down and submits to Tae-Ju’s advances as well as his own inner demons. They then begin their spiral into passionate eroticism, violence, and discovering the true nature of their souls on an inventive and dark journey that only Park Chan-Wook could create.
The film is presented in a very clearly defined three act structure. So clearly defined that they almost feel like three different short films stitched together. The second act really drags and loses focus but all acts are beautifully directed, technically impressive, and starkly unique. However, they really struggle to come together as a single cohesive film. There are some really surprising and sharp dark comedic moments littered throughout the film. They seem out of place and odd but they are timed pretty accurately right at the peak moments of climactic tension. These moments of comedic relief that Park inserts right in the middle of the exposition of the darkest depths of human character will leave you shocked and surprised at how smart and timely they are or you will think they are cheesy and unnecessary — there isn’t really any gray area.
Thirst is visually impressive and definitely carries the torch of Park’s style and methods. Considering at more than one occasion nothing is driving the narrative and the film starts to wander and stagnant it is definitely overkill on the length at 133 minutes. However, What it loses in punctuality it makes up for in impact and character development. The acting is superb and the story is compelling. In Thirst vampires aren’t automatically turned into evil demons that must kill by their nature with no self control. Vampires in Thirst are normal people just as they were before. They are just normal people who happen to be immortal with incredible strength, senses, and of course a thirst for human blood. Park explores how the new found benefits and limitations of being a vampire would corrupt and change your morals and personality. What would you do with your new found power? Would you use it despite all of your morals to satisfy your new found needs? It’s a battle of morals and faith against a visceral impulse to satisfy carnal desires – and a little bit of healthy everyday blood drinking. If you are a fan of Oldboy and you compare it to this film you will be doing yourself and Park a disservice. Thirst doesn’t have the impact of Oldboy or the quality to become a classic but it is a significant enough achievement that it deserves to be gauged on it’s own merits and not comparison alone. Thirst is a powerful film that secures itself a deserved spot alone in the recently resurgent pop-culture realm of the modern vampire mythos, but this vampire story is not for your teenage daughter.
No big haired vampire softy heart throbs here. Just blood and a terrifying and violent thirst for it.
7 out of 10