Thirst (Bakjwi) Review

The heart of Thirst may be a vampire film but its soul is a morality play, while its flesh is a sensuous playground of desire. Like his previous film I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK (2006), Chan-Wook Park's film ends with two lovers bathed in the light of the dawning sun - but there all similarities to anything that he has done before end, apart from the writer-director's trademark deftness with bright colours and striking images, and some familiar faces in the cast.

Thirst is not a tense cross-border thriller like JSA Joint Security Area (2000), nor does it follow the retaliatory trajectory of the so-called 'revenge trilogy' Sympathy For Mr Vengeance (2002), Oldboy (2003) and Lady Vengeance (2005). Rather, Thirst is ostensibly Park's first foray into feature-length horror (following his short Cut that formed part of the 2004 anthology Three Extremes ) - except that, even as a vampire film, Thirst is far from conventional.

From the moment we first meet Catholic priest Sang-Hyun (Song Kang-Ho) - administering to the sick and dying in a hospital, trying to offer advice and solace as he takes confession, and even selflessly volunteering for an experimental medical programme - it is clear that he is a good man. His self-denying prayers for suffering are answered in Africa where he becomes hideously infected, suffers a severe haemorrhage, and is pronounced deceased on a surgical table during an emergency transfusion. But this Jesus-like figure will indeed come back from the dead only to start living the life of sin and sensuality that he had long resisted and repressed.

"When you're dead, you're dead," Sang-Hyun tells his blind, elderly mentor (Park In-Hwan) back at the seminary, but in fact the miraculously resurrected priest seems to be undead. He catches sight (and, more importantly, scent) of Tae-Jug (Kim Ok-Vin), who was once the object of his boyhood affections and is now unhappily married to 'idiot' Kang-Woo (Shin Ha-Kyun). Sang-Hyun's burgeoning appetites lead him to slip inexorably into exploitation, adultery, murder and worse, as he all the while struggles to justify his actions and to steer himself back towards redemptive martyrdom.