I am a huge Park Chan Wook fan, only not being a fan of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, but loving the rest of his films, so I was overjoyed to see Thirst before a Korean DVD was released, and even better to finally see one of his films in the theater. And I had a wonderful time, laughing hysterically (even snorting) and disgusted at other times, so the film did really work. Still not his best film, in fact I would put it only above Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, but that still makes it a very enjoyable, sexy and disturbing horror film with 2 fantastic performances and an absolute must see film. And to think the Catholic church flipped out over Da Vinci Code, ha, this is so much worse!

Song Kang-ho (송강호) plays an orphan catholic priest Sang-hyeon, working at a hospital, who feels that just his praying is not doing enough good. He grew up in a Catholic orphanage under the tutelage of the now blind priest Noh (Park In-Hwan 박인환) who wanted him to become a doctor. Sang-hyeon volunteers for an experiment to find a vaccine for the deadly Emmanuel Virus (EV) in Africa, which causes lesions and boils, and always death, though only in men. Sang-hyeon is given the disease, and gets sicker and sicker, losing his nails, and getting boils and finally coughing up blood, so he is given a transfusion, but dies. The doctors declare him dead, but as they cover him, they hear him praying, and he has somehow survived. He returns to Korea, the only survivor, and still a carrier of the deadly disease, and covered in lesions and boils, so he is wrapped in bandages, and the people think he is a miracle, so they want him to pray for them to heal, and people even start camping outside of the congregation. Lady Ra shows up (Kim Hae-sook 김해숙) to get him to pray for her son Kang-woo (Sin Ha-gyoon 신하균). It turns out Kang-woo and Sang-hyeon were old friends as kids, so the invite the priest to come and stay with them, where he also meets Tae-joo (Kim Ok-bin 김옥빈), Kang-Woo’s wife. He had known her as a kid as well, thinking she was Kang-woo’s barefooted sister, but in fact was an orphan they took in, and treated like a dog, and then made her marry the son when she was old enough. Tae-joo is obviously very unhappy, and will do anything to get out. The family holds a majong game with there friends, and that night Sang-hyeon becomes sensitive to all sounds, and collapses and when he awakens he is now sensitive to sunlight, he has become a vampire.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Sang-hyeon is now filled with new desires and wants, and now has superhuman strength, and finds himself drinking blood from a comatose patient he watched slip into a coma before he left for Africa.

He ends up confiding in the blind priest Noh, who also lets him suck his blood, which heals the lesions from EV which keep returning. Sang-hyeon jumps from a building to kill himself, landing on a car, but heals, and his symptoms come back, so he needs more blood, and starts stealing transfusion packs from the hospital.

San-hyeon becomes drawn to Tae-joo, and she eventually comes to the hospital to “volunteer,” where they have sex for the first time, but when he shows her he is a vampire, she runs, but realizes she can use him to get away from the family she hates.

Tae-joo injures her legs with the tool she uses to sow at the traditional korean shop she works at with her mother in law, below their apartment, and that she wants to stab her idiot husband with. She makes San-hyeon think that her husband did it, and the two plot to drown him at a local damn where they fish at night. They drown the man, putting him in a cabinet in an old building under the water, with a rock on it, and report to the police.

Ra gets sick when she hears of her son, unable to move except a few fingers and her eyes, but she is brought home, where San-hyeon and Tae-joo now live together, having sex, but both being haunted by the memories of the dead husband. The couple have a huge huge fight in front of the mother who sees it all, realizing they killed her son. Tae-joo begs to be killed, and Sang-hyeon becomes enraged and does, but then draws his own blood and gives it to her, making her a vampire as well, and bringing her back.

They paint the apartment all white since they can no longer see the sun. And Tae-joo gets EV as well, even though she has a women, and needs blood to survive, but she loves the hunt. Sang-hyeon wants to never kill, though he ends up killing priest Noh, when the man begs to be made a vampire himself so he can see again, and live forever.

The couple fight even more over their way of life, with Sang-hyeon feeling more and more guilt.

Then the majong friends show up for a game, and the mother is able to communicated that the couple killed her son, and they go mad, killing them and hanging them to drain the blood. Sang-hyeon does not kill one friends Philipino wife (Merceds Cabral) though, and they run in their car with the mother.

When Tae-joo wakes up, they are at a cliff’s edge with nothing around, as the sun is about to come up. She tries to hide from the sun, in the trunk, under the car, wherever she can, but he fights her and leaves no place to hide. The two finally drink some more blood, and burt into flames as the sun comes up and the mother watches helplessly from inside the car.

•••

Such a messed up movie, but really enjoyable. We see the girl who wanted to become a vampire right away, and felt no wrong with killing to survive, and Sang-hyeon who has his priests guilt, which eventually makes him kill himself and the woman he thirsts for.

As I have said, this does not touch Old Boy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance or I’m a Cyborg but that’s OK, but it is still a powerful horror film, and well worth checking out.