Thirst

I saw it a while ago, but I wanted to make mention of Thirst by Park Chan-wook. I enjoyed the trilogy including Oldboy, which is probably the most well-known and best reviewed Korean-made film ever (discounting Korean opinion). I've always counted Oldboy as my "favorite Korean film ever" when speaking with Koreans. But after a while, I started to question myself. It's a great movie, but it's needlessly violent, and is something that I dislike more and more as time goes by. I don't know that I'd even be willing watch Oldboy again, which is too bad.

Anyway, my point about Thirst is that most of the gore happens off camera. For whatever reason Park spares us of that, which is a welcome change. Sure there's a lot of biting into necks, but it's done in a fairly non-violent way.

The story is basically a priest, who happens to be in love with his friend’s wife, turns into a vampire though a failed medical experiment. His vampire properties, of which I'm familiar with in a generic sense, are of the classic variety -- he needs blood to survive, runs around at night, sleeps in a coffin etc.

Song Kang-ho is the lead actor. I know him from The Host, which is probably the second most famous and well-reviewed Korean film. I didn't like The Host at all, despite that a lot of people gave it the same classic of the genre tag that I'm giving Thirst. But I did like Song, he's got a way of projecting empathy that's probably one of those things you can't teach to an actor.

Song is also from nearby Gimhae, which is kind of cool, and he also went to Kyungsung University in Busan, which is right where I used to live when I first moved to Busan. On fairly unrelated note, part of Oldboy was filmed in a basement restaurant in the same neighborhood where I used to eat a couple times a week. The restaurant is called Kirin (Korean for giraffe).

I was just poking around for some odd photos involving Oldboy and I came across this, which is a side by side comparison of an image from Oldboy and Virgina Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui. Here's a New York Times story on that topic. It's a clear emulation, and it's strange to me that anyone would try to deny the link. I'd be willing to bet that incident had something to do with Park toning down the violence in Thirst. My guess is it is a conscious move and good for him.