After his relatively unsuccessful box office turn with a cyborg rom-com, Park Chan-wook returns to the dark with a fascinating hybrid of the vampire film and Emile Zola’s Therese Raquin—a 19th century French novel about a love affair and murder. Viewers expecting another Old Boy should take heed: Thirst is a longer and slower, haphazardly structured narrative that operates more as a collection of several episodes than one cohesive story. But while the film lacks the power of a well-arced plot, Park still retains his gift for creating striking set pieces, full of pure cinematic spirit while tying in endearing characters and even moments of black humor. Very few directors can balance these as well as he.
The story follows Sang-hyun, a virtuous and respected Catholic priest who spends much of his time with the sick and suffering patients at the local hospital. Hoping to save lives, he volunteers for an experimental vaccination test to cure a deadly disease, but he succumbs to the virus and dies—at least until he is reborn after a chance transfusion of vampire blood.
Due to his miraculous recovery, he quickly gains a reputation for healing, which leads him to help a sick childhood friend, Kang-woo and his meek, miserable wife Tae-ju. While the kind-hearted Sang-hyun secretly tries to deal with his craving for blood in the most humane way possible (he drinks only small amounts from a comatose patient’s IV), Zola’s novel also comes into play as he strikes up a secret affair with Tae-ju.
And so Sang-hyun must deal with these two appetites—sex and blood lust— and star Song Kang-ho is nothing less than his remarkable, reserved self in capturing this character fluctuating between priestly resolve, guilt and doubt. The relationship between Sang-hyun and Tae-ju overcomes its immoral complications solely through the chemistry between Song and show-stealing newcomer Kim Ok-bin. Her performance is fascinating as Tae-ju bounces from submissive moments to manipulative and unhinged ones. These actors give viewers a firm footing even when the jarring plot moves from section to section.
Thirst’s main problem is that these sections never feel fully satisfying when they are discarded for the next segment of the plot. Park is more focused on reaching his epic, memorable moments (and stunningly memorable many of them are), but as a result, his themes remain unfinished, from the religious angle in the first act to the satirical domestic issues in the third. Some of these dovetail nicely, but other doors are left open purely so Park can have a delightful scene or two and move along to his next inspired bit.
But the power of these moments cannot be denied. The vampire genre has inevitably been worn out and aficionados will surely find themselves watching many scenes that they have witnessed before in anything from Angel and True Blood to Thirty Days of Night. But Park’s approaches, whether it is the lurid and uncomfortable domestic bliss in the white apartment sequences, the consistent dark humor of a suicide scene or the sheer ardor in the dramatic turning points, are what make this film well-worth watching. While viewers may not leave the film entirely sated, the camera movement, the resounding score, the rich production design and the revolting slurping sound effects of kissing turned blood-sucking will stay in one’s mind long after the film ends. At the very least, Park has left his mark on the vampire genre.
Reviewed by Tarun
