Plot: When priest Sang-hyun (Song) volunteers for a medical experiment, a transfusion turns him into a vampire. Soon he’s drawn to Tae-ju (Kim), the put-upon wife of an old friend. The couple kill her husband, and Tae-ju turns into a bloodthirsty creature...

***

The whole world seems to be intent on turning out vampire movies, TV shows and novels at the moment. Yet Park Chan-wook, the Korean director who made Oldboy, has still managed a fresh spin on the subgenre in this lengthy, quirky tale.

Thirst opens with a mixture of spiritual questioning and black comedy as Sang-hyun (Song Kang-ho), a sincere and boyish Catholic priest, survives a pustular disease through an unholy miracle, but tries to remain true to his clerical — and medical — vocation in his new vampiric state. Rather than hunt for victims, Sang-hyun lies on the floor and sucks blood through the drip-feed tube of a coma patient, excusing himself because the blood donor has made a fuss about his charitable treatment of the starving. The nagging Lady Ra (Kim Hae-sook) seeks the miraculous survivor’s prayers to help her sickly son Kang-woo (Shin Ha-kyun), a semi-friend from Sang-hyun’s childhood, and the vampire priest — who defrocks himself in several ways — is sucked into an unhealthy relationship with the ailing Kang-woo’s downtrodden but sensual wife, Tae-ju (Kim Ok-vin). With the characters in place, Thirst turns into a surprisingly close adaptation — admittedly, with vampires — of Emile Zola’s 19th century shocker, Thérèse Raquin.

Excerpt from Kim Newman at Empire Online located HERE