THE VAMPIRE FLICK Thirst is the most audibly visceral
film I’ve ever encountered. Director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy,
Lady Vengeance) has got a panache for blood slurpings, wet
squishes of gore, and embarrassing moist noises—all of which make
Thirst a riot of senses, if not the most cohesive film in the
South Korean director’s filmography.
Catholic priest Sang-hyun (The Host‘s Song Kang-ho)
volunteers to be a guinea pig for experimental treatments for a
mysterious leprosy-like disease. After a nasty bout of blood vomiting,
he receives a (tainted) blood transfusion, which cures his strange
affliction and gives him a new one—vampirism. The kindhearted
Sang-hyun is driven to pursue his thirst for all things
flesh—right to the door of his childhood friend Kang-woo (Shin
Ha-kyun) and to the bed of Kang-woo’s shy and downtrodden wife, Tae-ju
(Kim Ok-vin). Sang-hyun’s once pristine morality gets squelched in
blood and lust, as the former priest feeds on coma victims, screws
Tae-ju, and plots to murder Kang-woo.
Thirst is undeniably striking: It’s a moody, complex film
that’s rife with sexual peculiarities and perverse humor, but it also
feels like a confusing montage of two or three separate films. The
depths of Sang-hyun’s love for humanity and his subsequent guilt and
despair at becoming a vampire are skimmed over. While he grapples with
his hunger for blood and sex, flagellating himself in remorse, he feeds
from the feeble and infirm, which gives way to plots of murder and even
the raping of a young girl, to somehow ensure that he will go to hell
for his insatiable thirst. Kang-ho’s performance adds more nuance than
I think the meandering script contains, but his character is still a
quagmire of contradictions.
Tae-ju’s character is even more of a jumble, as she goes from a
young, petulant wife—a lackey for her adopted mother and
Kang-woo—to Sang-hyun’s voracious lover, who alleges that she’s
beaten by Kang-woo to incite his murder. Eventually Tae-ju progresses
to demon vampiress, a killing machine with zero regard for humanity.
She’s the monster to Sang-hyun’s vampire with a soul, which casts her
in a flat and inscrutable light, like some textbook case to analyze in
literary feminism class.
There’s no doubt that Thirst is worth watching, despite its
misses. It’s an imperfect but clamorous event, filled with gory
tableaus of red blood on stark white floors, mildewed rooms full of
squishy waterbeds, and priest vestments flapping like a vampire’s cape
as Sang-hyun soars from building to building. Chan-wook’s take on the
vampire mythology is a handsome and disorderly work, indeed.