Move over, Twilight. The world needs less sparkly vampires and more bloodthirsty humans from South Korea, like Park Chan-Wook’s Thirst, which opens tomorrow in limited theaters around the United States.
Park Chan-Wook, best known for directing Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, ventures into the world of horror with a story about a priest, played by The Host’s Song Kang-ho, who turns into a vampire after a medical experiment goes wrong. There’s also supposed to be lots of lust, gore and even full-frontal nudity–though the fact that Park’s work in Oldboy should be enough motivation for you to see this movie.
I’m not a big fan of vampires, which probably stems from my dislike of seeing blood of any kind, but I can’t wait to see Park’s take on a genre that has been dominated by Western or European story-telling. The trailer looks scary enough, and the film picked up the Jury prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. A co-worker (who’s seen the movie twice) professed to me that Thirst exceeded all vampire movie standards, including Twilight–though that’s not saying much. Hopefully Song’s character has less dramatic head turning stares than Edward Cullen. Yes, I hate Twilight. (Bring it on, you crazy fans!)
So support Asian cinema if you’re near any of these theaters!
Check out G4’s interview with Park Chan-wook from last weekend’s Comic-Con ‘09 after the jump.
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2 Comments to “Park Chan-Wook’s Thirst Opens Friday”
Name wrote:
Yes, you should support Asian cinema. But this is bad Asian cinema. I was bored out of my mind, and looking at the other faces sitting in my row, I wasn't the only one. My group walked out in the middle of the Q&A cause even that was boring beyond belief. Park Chan-wook spent like 10 minutes explaining “i picked the old music because she's the mother, and the modern music because the other characters are younger.” OH REALLY?! Yeh, Olde Boy was great but he didn't write it. Coincidence? No.
Posted on 31-Jul-09 at 12:55 am | Permalink
Facebook User wrote:
I quite enjoyed the film, and so did my friends. I wasn't bored at all (sometimes the pacing did seem slow) but I liked the plot twist that was slowly revealed as the movie went on, and I'm glad he kept his signature look and feel. I thought it was a great take on vampire lore that was less about trying to destroy these evil creatures, but how one would survive in modern society.
Posted on 11-Aug-09 at 2:28 pm | Permalink
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