Confessions of a Film Junkie: A review of “Thirst”
By: Brian Cotnoir
Where do I even begin
to describe the South Korean film “Thirst”?
“Totally awesome” and “original” are just a couple of words that come to
mind. It is your traditional becoming a
vampire and having to adjust to the new lifestyle film. I found it similar to films like “Interview
with a Vampire”, but with some more modern and original twists to it.
So the plot is the following (and the reasons I’m leaving the actual character names out is I do not feel like constantly checking the spelling of the names). There’s this Catholic Priest who works at hospital and he wants to find a way to combine God and science to help heal people. He volunteers to be a human test subject for a rare and extremely deadly disease called “the Emmanuel Virus”. The Priest begins to show symptoms of the disease and quickly his body begins to fail. As a last attempt effort to save his life, he is given a blood transfusion on the operating table and makes a miraculous recovery. The priest is the only survivor of the experiment, and many begin to speculate that he has divine healing powers and many begin to seek his help. Unbeknownst to all those people and the Priest—initially—the blood he was given was contaminated and turned him into a vampire. The film focuses a lot on the Priest trying to adapt to his new life, and find the benefits of being a member of the undead. There are a ton of amazing details, I want to talk about and discuss in this review, but I also don’t want to give away a lot of the story.
The film was directed and co-written by famed South Korean director Park Chan-wook; who also directed “Oldboy” and “I’m a Cyborg, but that’s okay”. There are just so many things that Park Chan-wook did in this film that I enjoyed. I like how the priest turned into a vampire from a blood transfusion. In today’s world, blood transfusions are one of the riskiest medical procedures a person can go through. Sometimes people are accidentally given blood that has been tainted with Hepatitis or HIV, so the idea that a person can accidentally become vampire from a blood transfusion in a hospital is actually very creative. Another interesting part of the plot is that the Priest hemorrhages blood every time someone starts praying near him, and yet the blood of a clergyman doesn't make it sick at all. To make things more interesting, the Priest has to battle the urge to steal blood from the Hospital he works at, which is a great moral conflict. We really get to see how the Priest’s character changes over the film from a quiet and reclusive man of the Church to a suave and lustful vampire. I think that if “vampirism” was an actual disease that this films story would be the closest thing to all the things a real person would go through as a vampire. For example, the priest doesn’t sleep in a coffin to avoid the sunlight—like vampires in other films—he sleeps in a giant cabinet. That’s both funny and original.
Also, I really like the Priests love interest in the film. The girl he falls in love with is really wild and fun. She knows how to have fun with a vampire, and I just love how awkward things get when the two have intercourse. In many ways this is very weird and violent love story, and I enjoyed every minute of it. The film is kind of long and I honestly think that with a few more details added to the plot this film could have easily been made into two equally good Vampire films.
So In Conclusion, I really enjoyed the film “Thirst”, and think that if you are a fan of the Vampire-Horror Genre then it is definitely a film you are going to want to watch.
So the plot is the following (and the reasons I’m leaving the actual character names out is I do not feel like constantly checking the spelling of the names). There’s this Catholic Priest who works at hospital and he wants to find a way to combine God and science to help heal people. He volunteers to be a human test subject for a rare and extremely deadly disease called “the Emmanuel Virus”. The Priest begins to show symptoms of the disease and quickly his body begins to fail. As a last attempt effort to save his life, he is given a blood transfusion on the operating table and makes a miraculous recovery. The priest is the only survivor of the experiment, and many begin to speculate that he has divine healing powers and many begin to seek his help. Unbeknownst to all those people and the Priest—initially—the blood he was given was contaminated and turned him into a vampire. The film focuses a lot on the Priest trying to adapt to his new life, and find the benefits of being a member of the undead. There are a ton of amazing details, I want to talk about and discuss in this review, but I also don’t want to give away a lot of the story.
The film was directed and co-written by famed South Korean director Park Chan-wook; who also directed “Oldboy” and “I’m a Cyborg, but that’s okay”. There are just so many things that Park Chan-wook did in this film that I enjoyed. I like how the priest turned into a vampire from a blood transfusion. In today’s world, blood transfusions are one of the riskiest medical procedures a person can go through. Sometimes people are accidentally given blood that has been tainted with Hepatitis or HIV, so the idea that a person can accidentally become vampire from a blood transfusion in a hospital is actually very creative. Another interesting part of the plot is that the Priest hemorrhages blood every time someone starts praying near him, and yet the blood of a clergyman doesn't make it sick at all. To make things more interesting, the Priest has to battle the urge to steal blood from the Hospital he works at, which is a great moral conflict. We really get to see how the Priest’s character changes over the film from a quiet and reclusive man of the Church to a suave and lustful vampire. I think that if “vampirism” was an actual disease that this films story would be the closest thing to all the things a real person would go through as a vampire. For example, the priest doesn’t sleep in a coffin to avoid the sunlight—like vampires in other films—he sleeps in a giant cabinet. That’s both funny and original.
Also, I really like the Priests love interest in the film. The girl he falls in love with is really wild and fun. She knows how to have fun with a vampire, and I just love how awkward things get when the two have intercourse. In many ways this is very weird and violent love story, and I enjoyed every minute of it. The film is kind of long and I honestly think that with a few more details added to the plot this film could have easily been made into two equally good Vampire films.
So In Conclusion, I really enjoyed the film “Thirst”, and think that if you are a fan of the Vampire-Horror Genre then it is definitely a film you are going to want to watch.
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