taehyungsfatnose
This review may contain spoilers
With a thirst for life.
A Catholic priest literally changes his lifestyle when he becomes a vampire through a blood transfusion. Old Boy director Park Chanwook updates the vampire genre in a sometimes bizarre way, which is always worth watching.
Asian horror can sometimes be a little difficult for us in the West to keep up with. Local myths, legends and general folk beliefs about ghosts, small whitewashed children or women looking out from under their wispy bangs can create shivers in the East, but shrugs in the West. It is therefore interesting when Park Chanwook transfers a typically Western genre like the vampire film to his South Korea. Here the story becomes more straightforward for all of us who know the vampire codes, while at the same time he creates something completely new with the theme.
Catholic priest Sanghyeon visits an area exposed to a deadly virus as a volunteer worker. He too is infected, declared dead on his sickbed, but is resurrected from the dead thanks to a blood transfusion. Unfortunately, his bag of blood was vampire blood and the priest soon finds himself on his feet, with a new thirst for life - Literally. His thirst is not limited to blood, but also for the flesh and he tortures himself to hold back his newfound sexual desires.
Sanghyeon becomes something of a miracle man, the only one to have survived the virus, and people make pilgrimages for the hope of a cure from the priest. He realizes his need for blood, but as a deeply religious man he cannot kill for his own survival. He cunningly takes on additional volunteer work at the hospital, where he can easily drop a comatose patient on the elixir of life. Life is complicated when Sanghyeon reconnects with a childhood friend, who has practically married his adoptive sister. He begins a secret relationship with Taeju, as the scorned wife is called. She is reminiscent of Eli in Let the Right One In, delicate but powerful, while at the same time enigmatic. Their relationship gradually takes them down a dark spiral of death and bloodshed.
Park Chanwook made the stylish and at times surreal Old Boy. Thirst involves a more straightforward story, but the style is just as sure and the story vital. He also does not shy away from the slightly bizarre, as in a scene where 2 vampires suck blood out of each other as in a hungry 69 position. He also has a good touch with effects that are portioned out in a nice way without taking over, they sneak in like warts that gradually disappear or veins that form contours under the skin. But above all, the director has a comic streak that comes to the fore in the everyday problems that Sanghyeon experiences as a newly-made vampire. Yes, the fact that he is a Catholic priest is of course a difficult contradiction.
Park Chanwook has taken a genre and updated it, just like in True Blood, Twilight and New Moon, but in a completely unique way. Here you have, excuse the expression, good bites, nice ideas and good acting. But, it gets a little too long. It doesn't get scary either, scary as in built-up tension. But it's still very watchable.
Asian horror can sometimes be a little difficult for us in the West to keep up with. Local myths, legends and general folk beliefs about ghosts, small whitewashed children or women looking out from under their wispy bangs can create shivers in the East, but shrugs in the West. It is therefore interesting when Park Chanwook transfers a typically Western genre like the vampire film to his South Korea. Here the story becomes more straightforward for all of us who know the vampire codes, while at the same time he creates something completely new with the theme.
Catholic priest Sanghyeon visits an area exposed to a deadly virus as a volunteer worker. He too is infected, declared dead on his sickbed, but is resurrected from the dead thanks to a blood transfusion. Unfortunately, his bag of blood was vampire blood and the priest soon finds himself on his feet, with a new thirst for life - Literally. His thirst is not limited to blood, but also for the flesh and he tortures himself to hold back his newfound sexual desires.
Sanghyeon becomes something of a miracle man, the only one to have survived the virus, and people make pilgrimages for the hope of a cure from the priest. He realizes his need for blood, but as a deeply religious man he cannot kill for his own survival. He cunningly takes on additional volunteer work at the hospital, where he can easily drop a comatose patient on the elixir of life. Life is complicated when Sanghyeon reconnects with a childhood friend, who has practically married his adoptive sister. He begins a secret relationship with Taeju, as the scorned wife is called. She is reminiscent of Eli in Let the Right One In, delicate but powerful, while at the same time enigmatic. Their relationship gradually takes them down a dark spiral of death and bloodshed.
Park Chanwook made the stylish and at times surreal Old Boy. Thirst involves a more straightforward story, but the style is just as sure and the story vital. He also does not shy away from the slightly bizarre, as in a scene where 2 vampires suck blood out of each other as in a hungry 69 position. He also has a good touch with effects that are portioned out in a nice way without taking over, they sneak in like warts that gradually disappear or veins that form contours under the skin. But above all, the director has a comic streak that comes to the fore in the everyday problems that Sanghyeon experiences as a newly-made vampire. Yes, the fact that he is a Catholic priest is of course a difficult contradiction.
Park Chanwook has taken a genre and updated it, just like in True Blood, Twilight and New Moon, but in a completely unique way. Here you have, excuse the expression, good bites, nice ideas and good acting. But, it gets a little too long. It doesn't get scary either, scary as in built-up tension. But it's still very watchable.
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