Thirst (2009)

It is not easy to find such weird movies, where things make sense but are somehow giving controversial emotions and slight grin on the face.Effects of slurping, super sounded kisses, fetishism, insanity, so called evil and bad are whirl-winding in this vampire story, leaving you wide eyed watching for the anticipation of the next scene craziness. Personally I couldn't feel anything horrifying but ironic smirks and smiles within me. What surprised me was the real feeling of love and romance that was growing up with the story.Enjoy.

I came across this flick at a convention being sold as the new flick from director Park Chun- wook. Does it ring a bell, Oldboy (2003). So we do know that he is famous for ultra-violent flicks but let me tell you that this one here isn't violent at all, to be honest, I can even say that many will turn this off because it goes rather slow.But if you sit though 2 hours and 32 minutes as I did then you will slowly be moved from a love movie into a vampire flick. Taking his time that's exactly what the director did. We first do meet the priest who's infected with some disease and from there on is being cured by becoming a vampire. But he's not only a vampire but he also falls in love with a girl who takes away his virginity and becomes a vampire too. Together they have fun until the fun becomes an addiction.There's red stuff here and there and the effects used are really well done and are sometimes on the edge of gore but it's the length and slowness of this flick that will play parts with the viewers. Being released at the time Twilight was big this surely has a bit of the same but done in Asian style and much better of course. And if you can see through it all you will have a smile now and then...Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0,5/5

Chan-wook Park adapted an original source for the screen and came up with this bold imagining. We have become used to the vampire, perhaps even jaded, but now and then a genre film comes along that looks inspired, injects new life into the world and ignites some excitement. This might not mean the film itself is great, but it does mean it isn't the same old same old. As far as the vampire story goes, this is 'Thirst', about a priest who, through an experiment gone wrong, finds himself craving the blood of another man's wife.As you would expect from any vampire tale, the layers, metaphors and symbolism are all there, and as you might expect from the man who brought us the recent 'Stoker' and the contemporary classic 'Oldboy', the unsettled tone and attention, almost obsession, to visual poetry is present. Chan-wook has the uncanniest ability to put together a film with such an apparently scatological approach, one might think the film a mess; he is able to mash drama, horror, comedy and the absurd, using a twisted romance and emotion as the glue for a work that, when it is all said and done, actually works as a whole. In this sense, you could say this is closest to 'I'm a Cyborg'. Trying to define 'Thirst' as any one sort of film proves extremely tough, and in many other hands it would be an absolute disaster piece. As it stands here, we have an intense, darkly amusing tale of obsession and the demented road love can sometimes take. To those familiar with more of the director's work, a regular theme, and a strangely twisted imagination, is certainly becoming ever clearer. As with certain other films he has made, the apparently simple and bland nature of the tale becomes more strange and dangerous as certain weird, sordid plot points get unveiled.It is not to say this is anywhere near a scratch on his best work; there are some stumbles along the way, most notable of which probably being the struggle the film has finding gear and engaging the audience. That said, once you're there and arrested by the imagery, which Chan-wook always makes compelling, and the rather striking intensity of certain scenes that take you by surprise with their unexpected beauty, rawness, or darkness, you find yourself having to see it through to the end. The end, in this case, being one of the most fascinating elements of the story, and possibly the director's second best finale.....beaten only by 'Oldboy', of course! Quite far from perfection and rough around the edges, but a strange, dark and interesting piece of cinema which, much like 'Cronos' and 'Let the Right One In', attempts to do something different with the age-old icon of the vampire.

Thirst: A bit speechless. Where to begin reviewing this film? Well, it is certainly a fantastic Thriller, some elements of Horror and Gore. It is unlike any film I have seen, and I have seen it all! Psychological, disturbing, creepy at times, culturally quite accurate (Korean), a must see for fans of Vampirism for sure, but also anyone that wants to see a disturbing, complex, form of a Thriller. I have not seen any other films by this Director but I certainly will be doing so now. Thirst has a bit of everything in it - not strictly about vampires by far. And to those reviews that mention that it is "Twilight" for adults? You have it wrong. It is nothing like Twilight. Yes, there are some similar traits but no, it is not a Vampire Romance...it is SO much more than that and the other positive reviews are bang-on and speak for themselves. I particularly enjoyed the character developments, the struggles with faith, family, friends as well as the eerie facial expressions. What a creative and well-written story. You need to see this for yourself and come to your own conclusions!