Review: Thirst

While watching Thirst, I felt something I haven't felt in ages at a vampire movie: Disgust. Park Chan-Wook's most ambitious film to date is a bloody, campy triumph. A sickening soup of gore and comedy that would put Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell to shame.

Thirst brings us Sang-hyun, a priest with an everlasting need to help people. He's become tired of the world around him, and the way it seems to be forgetting or ignoring the suffering of people. His only true desire, is to wipe away all human suffering from the planet. A deeply devout man, he allows himself no sexual desire whatsoever, flogging himself at the slightest enticement. Sang-hyun, in a bid to do something great in this world, volunteers for an experiment that if successful would save thousands of people suffering from a virus. When Sang-hyun is injected with a vial of tainted blood, the results transform him into a blood sucking vampire.

Realizing what he has become, Sang-hyun revels in his newfound energy and thirst, quenching himself with the blood of coma patients who I guess don't really need blood? He becomes something of a celebrity as the only man to survive the experiment, and people rally around him as as heavenly figure who can cure the ill. He helps heal his old friend, Kang-woo, a weak momma's boy with a penchant for treating his wife Tae-Ju like dirt. Sang-hyun and Tae-Ju become close. She's drawn to his strange ways and stranger vampiric attributes. He's drawn to her fierce spirit, but perhaps also by the need to not be alone. The two form a symbiotic partnership, until he asks her to run away with him. However she's got a far more twisted idea in mind, and she asks him to help her murder her abusive husband.

I'm a sucker for twisted love stories, but none get any sicker than this. Tae-Ju is infatuated with Sang-hyun, perhaps because he's so forgiving and desperate for anybody's affection given his condition. She helps break him from the mental torture he was inflicting upon himself over what he has become, forcing him to mostly give up his priestly vows and embrace his true nature. But her love for him hides a deeper, darker motivation. Not just her husband's death, but that of utter chaos. Tae-Ju is a force of nature, who once empowered reaks havoc on everything around her. The question is what whether or not Sang-hyun is willing to accept it because of their love, or if he should do anything about it.

I've often said that vampire movies are my favorite. I'll go see anything as long as there's even the potential for a vampire to show up. Twilight? Sure, I'll brave the stench of bubble gum and Clearasil™ to see it on a Friday night. 30 Days of Night...Interview with the Vampire...Shadow of the Vampire..I'm there, man. In recent years there's been a movement to make vampires cool and likeable. No longer are they the murderous creatures who use humans as cattle, but are glowing silver moon children who rock the latest gear stolen straight off the set of Gossip Girl. No thanks. What Park Chan-Wook is done is bring us back just a little bit in the right direction. Sang-hyun is by no means an evil monster. His affliction ain't even his fault really, and his struggle with it is one of the film's finest strokes. But he's no saint, either, as he slurps the sloshing lifeforce from an unsuspecting victim's tubes or coldly stabs a man in the chest so that he can suck the blood straight from his heart. He does what he does mostly out of necessity, but only just.

Strange to think that a horror/comedy about a vampire priest could be a director's most mature work to date, but I think Chan-wook has really kicked it up a few levels here. I fell in love with his work the same place most people did, with the Vengenace Trilogy(Old Boy, Mr. Vengeance, Lady Vengeance), and as much as I love those films there is an almost childlike single-mindedness to them. Here he wrestles with multiple issues including loneliness, faith, and severe self loathing. Perhaps the greatest credit I can give it is that it manages to disgust me at times but also make me feel for the two main characters. In the final leg of the film, the narrative almost completely flips on you, and it becomes almost like a vampire sitcom, but at no point do any of these people feel...fake. These vampires are presented with far more human emotion than anything I saw in Funny People. Yeah, I'm lookin' at you, Apatow. Get them fake characters outta heah! I'm hoping, much like with the Vengeance Trilogy, Chan-wook decides to revisit this concept in some way. Perhaps even another movie monster?

8/10