Fridae

Thirst is easily the best vampire movie to arrive since Sweden’s Let The Right One In made a stir among vampire buffs earlier this year. Sly, stylish and sometimes stunningly gruesome, this revisionist Korean fangoria is written and directed by the gifted Park Chan-wook whose previous works like Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr Vengeance have become revered cult classics among movie geeks.  

Winning the jury prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Thirst centers on a devout Catholic priest (Song Kang-ho) who’s become depressed from ministering hospital patients. He selflessly volunteers himself as a subject for an experimental vaccine. But the experiment goes horribly wrong and he finds himself transformed into a pale-faced bloodsucker.

His conscience, however, remains and he cannot bring himself to kill innocent people to quench his thirst for human blood. All that changes when he starts an affair with a married woman (Kim Ok-win) who claims her husband is abusing her…   

Thirst begins on a somber portrayal of moral angst, and then turns into a lyrical depiction of a strange romance, before finally exploding into an intensely gruesome film, with blood splattered on every corner of the screen. For fans of arthouse cinema, this is a bold and exhilarating ride unlike any to be found in the cinemas right now. 

We highly recommend it.