Austin360 blogs > Austin Movie Blog > Archives > 2009 > May > 14 > Entry
More “Thirst” at Cannes
I doubt that Park Chan-Wook, the famed director from South Korea, has ever seen “True Blood” on HBO. But I couldn’t help thinking about it during the screening of his latest film in competition in Cannes.
It’s called “Thirst,” and it deals with a Catholic Korean priest who undergoes medical experiments to help people and ends up turning into a vampire. If he doesn’t drink blood, he starts to look like a leper, with boils on his body and fingernails that peel off. The fingernail peeling gets a bit old, but hey, this is par for the course for the director of “Oldboy.”
The similarities to “True Blood” focus on vampire ethics. If you’re a good vampire, you should probably just rely on blood that’s been in storage, so that you don’t kill people. Or you can hook up an IV at a local hospital and drink from the tubes of the sick. That’s what the priest in “Thirst” does.
But he starts to have sexual urges, too. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s a recipe for trouble. His new lover/convert doesn’t want to rely on the bottled brew and likes the kill. What’s a priest to do?
If you’ve ever watched “True Blood,” you’ll spot the similarities immediately. But this doesn’t mean that “Thirst” should be dismissed. It’s quite stylistic, with the unmistakable imprint of an auteur. And it should find receptive audiences among those who liked “Oldboy.”
Immediate reaction from my Canadian friends was mixed. But I come down on the favorable side. In fact, I haven’t seen a bad movie yet in the competition group. And that’s unusual.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Cannes
Comments
Click here to report comment abuse.
By Maria
May 14, 2009 5:49 PM | Link to this
Charles, do you think that the sex/nude scenes of this film are in NC-17 level?