Park Chan-Wook’s ‘Thirst’ Review
Posted in Reviews on Saturday, January 2nd, 2010 by Veronica R. | View Comments
Park Chan-Wook, the force behind Oldboy and Lady Vengeance, brings us ‘Thirst,’ a complicated vampire story. I know what you’re thinking – ”I’m sick of vampires!” — but this one is different. This film came out in the earlier part of 2009 and I finally got a chance to see it. Sang-Hyun, a goodhearted priest, volunteers to participate in a vaccine development program for a deadly virus. Things go horribly wrong and he is eventually given a life-saving blood transfusion. When he wakes up, he finds that he has an intense thirst for blood and an aversion to the sun. I wonder what that could mean? Oh, he’s a vampire! He copes with his newfound lust by siphoning blood from a dying man in the hospital he works for. He doesn’t harm the man and feels this is the only justifiable way to cope with being a vampire.
His life becomes further complicated when he enters into an affair with his childhood friend’s wife, Tae-Ju. Tae-Ju, a deeply disturbed woman, discovers Sang-Hyun’s secret as is intrigued by it. She leads Sang-Hyun further down the path of sin when she convinces him to kill his childhood friend. When he discovers she manipulated him by lying and saying she was being abused, he kills her in an uncontrollable rage and is forced to turn Tae-Ju into a vampire as well because he doesn’t want so many deaths on his conscience.. The last half of the film focuses on Tae-Ju and her uncontrollable bloodlust. She enjoys killing people and sucking the blood out of them. Sang-Hyun, still attempting to keep a hold on his humanity, is forced to destroy her and himself to put an end to it all.
With all the glittery romanticized vampires in the media lately, it was refreshing to see a realistic take on the blood thirsty creatures of the night in Park Chan-Wook’s latest film, Thirst. Does that mean I thought this film was enjoyable? No. I have loved Park’s films in the past, with Oldboy being one of my favorites, but this latest venture was less than I expected. It kept with Park’s usually themes of psychological drama and lots of violence and blood, but the movie was missing the usual magic and spark.
For one thing, it was unnecessarily long. The plot dragged on and scenes were thrown in that didn’t fit or that didn’t need to be included. The beginning of the movie was slow but interesting because the audience was getting to know Sang-Hyun; and watching how he struggled to remain human despite being a vampire, especially since he’s a priest, was a psychological journey. I enjoyed his character up until he turned Tae-Ju into a vampire. The movie became focused solely on her after that and we stopped following the Priest’s journey into his own personal hell which was the key point in this film. He becomes passive to her murder spree and eventually ends up killing as well to satisfy her. There isn’t much to the movie at this point. It becomes boring and the only semi-interesting thing, sadly, is all the blood and violence.
‘Thirst’ had a lot of promise and it could have been one of Park’s greatest films but it lost its way and became convoluted. I give this film a 2 out of 5.
Related Post
Tags
2 Star Movies, Bakjwi, park chan-woo, thirst, vampires
