Thirst (Korean film): and odd but nicely-done vampire film
If you read my stuff at all you likely already know how much I enjoy Korean movies. I find the inability to judge where a story is heading so satisfying. While I am sure many of you already knew i would say this: Korean movies tend to do a much better job at keeping us guessing as to what will happen next much more so than western movies.
Director Park Chan-wook is truly gifted and is the director of many of my favorite Korean films such as Oldboy, The Handmaiden, and Joint Security area. I can't put my finger on exactly what he does correctly and since I don't have a professional background in film, all I can really say from my layman's eyes is that I just really enjoy the way he shoots films. He has fantastic vision and perhaps that is why he is one of most celebrated directors in Korea, if not the world.
Not one to stick with conventional plotlines, Park Chan-wook takes us down a path in "Thirst" that we wouldn't normally travel down in the vampire genre. To be honest when i found out this was going to be a vampire movie I actually put it on hold for a while because I feel as though it's been done far too many times (it's in the trailer and kind of obvious by the name of the film - so I am not spoiling.)
The strangest part of this (and this happens in the first 6 minutes of the movie and is also in the trailer, so again, not spoiling,) is that the main character, Sang-hyun (played by the immensely talented Song Kang-ho) is a devout Catholic priest that ends up accidentally becoming a vampire because of his volunteer work through the church. He, obviously upon learning that he is undead, has a relatively massive crisis of conscious about what he must do in order to survive.
What makes this movie so special is that Song Kang-ho and lead actress Kim Ok-bin (who plays Tae-Ju) performances are so amazing in that the both of them, and i would say especially Kim Ok-bin, have to display such a wide array of emotions throughout the duration of the movie. The two of them really impressed me with their incredible versatility as they transition from depression, to rage, to lust in such a quick amount of time. However, unfortunately, most of the other actors in the film are pretty average.
I didn't like the inclusion of a several unnecessary English speakers in the movie because the dialogue that takes place when they are on-screen is just kind of uncomfortable since it is quite obvious from his few lines in English that Song Kang-ho doesn't speak English at all, nor does he understand it.
The inclusion of Filipino movie star Mercedes Cabral as a supporting actress hopefully happened because the producers wanted to try to get people in the Philippines to watch this, because I can't think of a single reason why it was necessary for her character to be from abroad. All of her dialogue is in English towards people that respond to her in Korean and her husband never speaks to her in anything but Korean. It doesn't make sense. That is really my only gripe about this film other than the fact that it is a bit long. However, i say that even though at the end of it I wanted the movie to keep going.
I whole-heartedly recommend this movie to anyone who can handle a little bit of gore. It isn't the central theme but some of it can be a bit much for the more sensitive people out there. It is also quite sexually graphic so don't watch this with your parents / kids.
What Park Chan-wook does so successfully is break genres rules, that would give the Hollywood studios conniption fits.
Is he a genre exploitation movie maker? Yes. Is he an art film maker? Yes.
And no, to both questions. For an art movie would generally not want to delve into extremes of sex and violence just for the sake of it, nor would an art movie leap from tone to tone the way Park does, from horrific, to dramatic, to comedic.
And a genre film maker generally would not want to explore serious themes, to slow down the action to analyse what makes us human, to unsex the vampire story by undressing it from the inside out.
When Park shoots a film, it's damn expensive. He doesn't shoot the long shot and two sideways closeups, of your average Hollywood hack. He wants to apply Hitchcock or Scorsese level camera techniques to genre type plots.
Park will shoot from cranes overhead, to suggest a gods eye view; he will start on a closeup and pull back to reveal an extreme long shot, to dissect and reveal the true meaning of a thing, he will shoot flat frontal shots to create intimacy and existential awareness; he will track with a character to create identification, then suddenly move away from that character to see them as others see them.
Park essentially is like a God of his world, seeing everything from every angle, distance and character perspective. He is like Leonardo da Vinci, dissecting human anatomy, with the same desire to see what makes us tick. What makes groups tick. What makes places function.
He is aided by Korean audiences, who welcome an art movie aesthetic in their genre movies, and who accept a blending and breaking of genre conventions. Korean audiences don't mind not having the comfort of knowing what is going to happen, which is one of the main reasons for making genre movies in the first place: to promise a thing and deliver that thing, like a pacifier to a baby's mouth.
Korean audiences are grown-ups, who welcome experiment in film making.
In Thirst, Park takes the Zola tragedy, Therese Raquin, and combines it with a balls out vampire movie. He blends the two genres to create something new out of two old things. It's like he bought two genres at a charity shop, cut them up, added a little humor of his own, and remade the cut ups into something entirely new.
I don't think this is as exceptional as Oldboy, but it certainly is unique, beguiling, and a superb showcase for the effortless naturalism and impulsiveness of Kim Ok-bin. A memorable movie. :)
wow buddy! your follow-ups never fail to impress. I think i look forward to them as much as anything else in my day. :)
To bear the Word of the Lord in our world full of sinful temptations - work, as you know, is not from the lungs. And what if good, in the person of a respected Catholic priest, finds not only "fists", but also a real demoniac look? The creators of the South Korean movie "Bakjwi" tell us about the heavy and painful throwing of a once pure soul in the body of a man who, as a result of a strange medical experiment, is losing his good human life day by day. This is expressed in the struggle of two opposing principles: what is a grave sin for man, then for the beast there is only a norm of behavior. Especially when you consider that all this happens in the harsh conditions of the world of people who are most frightened by the unknown and who with equal passion desire either a speedy and painless withdrawal from life or eternal life.
But, perhaps, at the head of all this is the longstanding opposition of good and evil, their struggle and their dualism. How can sin be terrible if it is committed for the sake of helping another person? And how much can forbidden light love, expressed in a vicious temptation and pulling a chain of bloody crimes? But in the personality of the protagonist, how much is complicated and so confusing, that most likely after watching the film, each viewer will make up his own opinion, making his conclusions, but it is unlikely that this brightly emotional and action-packed tape will leave anyone indifferent. The narrowness of the narrative is emphasized by a fair amount of wise phrases, dialogues and citations, which you would like to remember or write out, which, you will agree, is not a frequent occurrence for a film about vampires.
excellent follow-up. Thanks for sharing and I am glad you enjoyed the film as well.
Not for the squeamish, but the number of twists, inventive uses of situations using vampire mythology, gorgeous visual extremes, together with interesting and quirky characters make this one of the most stunning horror films I've ever seen. It descends into utter madness along with characters, but never seems exploitative or horrific without purpose. There are copious amounts of bloodletting accompanied by some nasty sucking and squishing sounds, but also subtle moments where you laugh out loud. As he tends to do, Chan-wook Park keeps you off center with leaps in time and plot and situation that you have to fill in for yourself forcing your involvement in the story and characters.
And there's a lot of literal leaping. Keeping in the vein of vampire myth (pun intended), they have superhuman strength and can nearly leap tall buildings in a single bound (to coin a phrase). The first time our heroine is carried by the across the tops of buildings by the troubled vampire priest, it has all the magical romance of Lois Lane and Superman - but this romance becomes increasingly disturbing - but driven by a strange and conflicted 'love affair' not by mere horror.
The acting is superb, particularly OK-vin Kim, the gorgeous actress in the female lead role who, at 22, shows a range that is remarkable. The character borders on a kind of black widow film noir type. She careens from innocent to impish to vixen to demon with utter conviction. This is a really smooth and nervy performance.
Hiii... gooddream
Good information on this movie.
I do love gore and i love vampire movies even more, pardon me if you think they are cliche, i did watch all of Vampire diaries and all of The originals episodes and no one makes Vampire movies better than the Koreans so am kinda exhilirated about this one, also because you gave it a good rating and i loved your narration
Great movie. I felt the English too was unnecessary, wowould have been a lot better if the movie was purely Korean spoken
Train to Busan is one of the better zombie movies in my opinion. Korea and Japan can be cheesy but their movies also have lots of potential.
Looks good in your words
After all these years listening to Korean tracks today im gonna check out a Korean movie lol , lets see
To have a good director is a great blessing.
I saw some Korean movies recently. They were very interesting.i will also try this movie in coming days. Hope it will give me more joy than old ones.