Focus Features / R / 133min Anamorphic 2.35:1 / DD 5.1 Korean (English subtitles)

There was a time when the vampire belonged to Transylvania. He would slink, tuxedo and cape adorned, through darkened alleys and moonlit-painted mists, fangs on the qui vive for a maiden’s neck. But those times have slowly shifted over the decades, as though, having avoided sunlight for so long, the modern vampire has headed straight into the limelight. While the word still brings near-archetypal images of these well-dressed nocturnals to mind, the vampire of the 21st century is an entirely different beast, what with the recent trends of revisionist young adult fiction and Hollywood blockbusters. What was once the elusive terror of the night has become nothing better than a fad. But this is not to say all is lost for the vampire, as some still care for him, some still call him their friend, and writer/director Park Chan-Wook is among that list.

Park’s Thirst is a weird version of a vampire movie where the basic drive is not what you would expect and the vampire is not at all who you would think. Sang-hyun, played with a stoic and somber perfection by Song Kang-ho (The Host), is a Catholic priest, introduced as a selfless martyr who offers himself to a dangerous medical experiment. Sang-hyun soon succumbs to the virus being tested and dies, only to be resurrected, not miraculously, but by a transfusion with the blood of a vampire.

Thirst is almost fully removed from Bram Stoker’s original legend and the only vampiric point which Park overtly drives home, is that this is not really a vampire movie. Sang-hyu’s starched white collar and flowing habit replace the high collar and black cape of the vampire. He has no fangs, no distaste for garlic, and certainly no fear of the crucifix. Park’s most telling scene is the very one in which Sang-hyun divulges his vampiric tendencies: the camera pans slowly across the room and pauses for a 30 second static shot of a discussion reflected in a mirror. Within the mirror there is only Sang-hyun’s face, the reflection of his partner lost by the angle of the shot. It is within such pauses that Park makes his vision clear. Yet this is not the antithesis to the vampire movie; Thirst is not a revisionist prop used to dissect and dismantle the preconstructed mythos of the vampire. What Park has done is create a beautiful, arresting film void of superficiality, focusing on the true element that rules the vampire: an undeniable, unquenchable thirst.

However, thirst is nothing new to Sang-hyun. As a priest, his entire life has been a continual stream of the forbidden, kept in check by his reverence, and, when that fails, self-flagellation. But when the blood of Christ is replaced by the blood of something oh-so-different, Sang-hyun is reborn, sort of. Even though he has this new blood in him, there is not an instant change. He continues his selfless life for weeks as the “Bandaged Saint,” giving the weak and sickly hope with his prayers. There is no superhero- or kung fu-esque montage that explains the shift or allows the protagonist to test or train for what he will become. Sang-hyun’s transformation is brutally quick: a cacophonous collage of off-putting images, brimming with sturm und drang, after which he has become something new. This change is not randomly orchestrated, nor is it due to some scheduled, clinical effect of his new blood. The catalyst is the reunion of Sang-hyun and his childhood friend, Tae-joo (Ok-vin Kim).

With her sickly milquetoast husband and overbearing, taskmistress mother-in-law, Tae-joo lives the life of a modern-day Cinderella, dull with begrudging sacrifice and intense wants. She has no friends and spends her days alternating between minding her husband’s health and her mother-in-law’s store. Her only escape is running her feet ragged during excursions through abandoned midnight streets while her family sleeps. The similarities between Tae-joo and Sang-hyun are striking. Both are burdened by desire with no means for satisfaction, and perhaps this why they hit it off so well: each fulfilling in the other that what has been denied of them. Their meeting, which sparks an affair based more on thirst than love, ultimately begets murder, betrayal, and tragedy.

At this point, the film starts to go a little crazy. Barely conforming to any narrative convention, the plot progresses in a strange assortment of starts and stops, unfolding in mood swings, without fluidity, but with verve and authenticity. The camera flits through the couple’s courtship, lingering on brief moments of quiet love, and blazing through scenes of forbidden sex. In both literature and film, the vampire has gone through the tribulations of eternal life, love, and loneliness. What is so atypical about Thirst’s frenetic pacing is that its vampire—a creature who literally has all the time in the world—is forced to endure a rushed love that begins with a blitzkrieg fury and then, over the course of what feels like mere days, uncoils and burns away. It is here that we recognize Thirst, as Park readily admits, to be inspired by Émile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin.

From everything described, Thirst must seem a convoluted mess. Yet, this is why the film truly works. Park’s overall focus of the film avoids the obvious and the cliché and rightly lingers on the characters and their unsepulchered emotions. And rather than focus on the infinite, Park looks to the day to day. It would be a waste of film and time to embellish the inherent elements of the vampire. That is not to say that these elements are unimportant, absent, or undermined by Thirst. Park touches on all these ideas with a subtle grace; he allows the vampire to speak for himself, letting the human trapped inside get a word in. What arises from this unmuted soliloquy is a playful suggestion that, perhaps, vampirism acts more as a sort of Dumbo’s Feather, rather than a supernatural transformation. By humanizing the vampire, by embellishing their emotions over our expectations, Thirst makes us wonder if whether all that transpired was brought on by the blood of a vampire or if it was, instead, truly rooted in all those nasty things which lie within us all.

Park Chan-wook is an artist in the very traditional, paint-and-palette sense of the word. If you were to remove everything but the images, his film would still be entirely enthralling. This release does a great job of capturing that, especially given its standard definition drawbacks. If you are familiar with Park’s earlier works and have become used to his masterful use of camera and composition, Thirst will not let you down. Each of the camera’s movements, angles, and framings embellish the film and none of it is lost to this DVD release. Park’s use of color is a simultaneously bizarre mix of vibrant and muted. From the blood reds to the neon whites of the vampire sun to the blues that pervade the entire film, the DVD captures all of it very well. Clarity and detail are stunning for a DVD release, with almost no noticeable noise to speak of, even with close ups (of which there are many). I am still holding out for the HD release, but this DVD whets the appetite quite nicely.

The Korean 5.1 Dolby Digital track does a wonderful job, especially given its lossy nature. Never before has a sex scene been more memorable for its sounds than its sights. Park’s use of slurps and swallows is invasive and affecting, as they wetly flow from all corners of the sound stage. The dialog is crisp and effortlessly understandable, if you know Korean. If you are like me and have to rely on the subtitles, then prepare to be let down. The translation seems poor, though possibly syntactically correct. Monoglots can follow the story, but I fear most of the poetry of the original screenplay is lost. Thirst can sometimes be a very quiet film, but for the rambunctious scenes, this audio track is truly captivating and puts your speakers to good use.

Unless you consider scene selections to be a special feature, there are absolutely no extras to be found on the DVD. No trailers, no interviews, no commentaries. Are they waiting for the sun to go down before they release a 2-disc mega-set, or do they expect us to consider the film so good, it could double as a special feature too? Don’t expect there to be anything other than the film here, because, well, there isn’t.

The DVD comes in a standard armaray case.

—Click images for full resolution captures—

Park Chan-wook has once again shown himself to be an exquisite master of cinematic storytelling. Thirst is an invigorating continuation of his post-vengeance canon, but also a fine place to start for the Park neophyte. My only trepidation in recommending this wonderful DVD release by Focus is that, in the day of High Definition, there is bound to be a Blu-ray release available, which could be worth the wait.