Thirst

aka: Bakjwi
South Korea 2009, 133 minutes
Dir. Park Chan-Wook
In Korean with English subtitles
Rating: [R16]
Genres: Foreign Cinema, Horror / Vampires

Feat. Kang-ho Song, Kim Ok-bin, Ha-kyun Shin

Aroview: A voracious vampire movie not afraid to explore the corrupting and liberating power of being undead, starring THE HOST’s burly Song Kang-ho as a priest whose run-in with a medical experiment transforms both his appetite and forbidden sexual longing.

Flying in the face of TWILIGHT’s dreamy vampire angst, dir. Park’s well-exercised palette of stylized sadism and vicious black comedy seems perfectly suited for a shakeup of the genre, and he willfully indulges in the un-pleasantries that others have ignored. That is to say, sex and violence feature outrageously throughout a film which, if sometimes nihilistic and not at all for the squeamish, is a twisted tale of blood and lust that 'grown ups' can finally sink their teeth into.

NZ International Film Festival 2009