Mar 16 2009
Oldboy director Chan-wook Park gets Thirst-y for vampires
Arthouse and festival-circuit favorite Chan-wook Park (a.k.a Park Chan-wook in traditional Korean phrasing) is a pretty tough filmmaker to peg. Sure, he’s done his share of violence and shock-heavy pics like his acclaimed 2003 mind-bending (and gut-churning) thriller Oldboy and the brutal 2002 revenge drama Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and perhaps he’s best known for those efforts. But he can do quirky and sweet too, as with his 2006 romance I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK.
Park’s defied easy description with every career move he’s made, and his latest effort, Thirst, continues that trend by, ironically, playing within the fields of a well-traveled genre, the vampire film. Reteaming with his talented Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance star Kang-ho Song, the director may be threatening mainstream sellout status by jumping on the bloodsucker bandwagon, but I think the guy’s probably got a few tricks up his sleeve that’ll allow him to play with the creature’s mythology and to make his work distinctly Eastern in flavor.
Thirst is the story of a devoutly religious priest (played by Song) who agrees to take part in a medical experiment, only to find that the test changes him into a vampire. What makes this tale potentially more interesting is that the film will explore more than mere blood guzzling: it’ll delve into questions of faith, and explore the fluid boundaries of morality. These are the kind of uneasy, uncomfortable explorations that make Park’s movies so consistently special.
Check out the new, unsubtitled teaser for Thirst over here.
