| Thirst | |
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Before we bemoan this great director's descent to less unique subject matter, it is worth remembering how exciting it was when Kim Jee-Woon and Takashi Miike revitalised the Western genre with their own idiosyncratic twists just a couple of years ago. It's not beyond Park Chan-Wook to perform similar services to the world of these bloodsucking monsters, and we can certainly rely on him to tear them back from the sickeningly sweet world of Twilight and into the realm of horror again. The myth Mr. Park carves here begins with Catholic priest Sang-Hyun (the ever-excellent Song Kang-Ho) who spends his life tending to the sick. Having spent much of his adult life in a hospital, he grows weary of the endless cycle of suffering which he seems powerless to stop and decides to join a monastery which is running experiments to try and cure a deadly new disease called the Emmanuel Virus, or EV. Despite his strict prayer regimen he manages to contract EV and is rapidly treated with a blood transfusion to prevent its spread throughout his body. Despite the best efforts of the medical team he dies... only to suddenly awaken, and see the EV gradually disappear from his system. When it emerges that he not only awakened disease free, but with an insatiable appetite for blood, and other carnal desires, the only plausible explanation seems to be that he has somehow been converted into a vampire. It's a somewhat clunky introduction that deploys the standard vampire imagery of religion, mortality and sickness but fails to coherently piece them together in a way consistent with the history of the vampire myth. Hand Park Chan-Wook totally discarded the traditions in favour of a new take on the genre, or warped them into his own creation (as Kim Jee-Woon and Takashi Miike did with Westerns) then the opening 30 minutes would be justified, but as it stands the mild infusion of (admittedly amusing) Korean humour fails to suffice. However, from here on it he finds his stride and soon the plot is intertwining dark humour (in the style of Kim Jee-Woon's The Quiet Family) with a screwball romance (think I'm a Cyborg) and the fantastically warped morality conundrums we've come to expect from this talented director since Oldboy first grabbed us by the goolies. It all begins when Sang-Hyun bumps into his childhood friend Kang-Woo in hospital. His mother beseeches Sang-Hyun to pray for a miracle for Kang-Woo, and when he does he is invited for dinner as a thank you. When he reaches the family home he meets Tae-Ju, their adopted daughter and now the wife of Kang-Woo. Soon they find themselves in a bizarre mutual attraction, fed by their shared lust which has been encouraged by their backgrounds as a repressed monk and a repressed child respectively. Sang-Hyun tries to restrain himself, but Tae-Ju becomes obsessed by this newfound sexual freedom: with dire consequences.  The film descends into a battle of epic proportions as the conflicting pressures of carnal desire and moral resraint spills over from the torrid emotional interiors of these characters into a gory, destructive reality replete with the kind of stunning visual excess that has become Park Chan-Wook's trademark. The crowning moment comes as the couple make love with the (probably imagined) corpse of a dead friend lying in between them, grinning like a buffoon. It's chilling, it's warped, it's even funny - but most of all it's enthralling. How a story can vacillate between such extremes of violence, humour and love is utterly inexplicable. Thirst does not quite reach the heights of some of Park-Chan Wook's earlier films (in particular the Vengeance trilogy), but that it can rank somewhere in the middle of his body of work and still provide such a giddying cinematic experience is further proof that he is one of the most talented directors around. Well worth a watch this Halloween. Rating: **** Starring: Song Kang-Ho, Kim Ok-Vin, Oh Dal-Su, Kim Hae-sook, Shin Ha-kyun, Park In-hwan Director: Park Chan-Wook Run time: 133 mins Certificate: UK 18 | US R | S.Korea 18 Release date: 16th October 2009 Review by Michael Edwards
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Park Chan-Wook is one of the most intriguing and original filmmakers around today, so it may come as something of a surprise to see that his latest film heads down the well-trodden path of the vampire myth. 
