Confession is open, and things are about to get bloody. This week, Sam and Sarah take on Thirst—a tale of faith, lust, murder, and one extremely thirsty priest.
THIRST
Theatrical Release Date: April 30, 2009 (South Korea) / July 31, 2009 (U.S.)
Budget: Approx. $5 million USD
Directed by Park Chan-wook, Thirst stars Song Kang-ho as Sang-hyun, a Catholic priest who volunteers for a medical experiment that goes very wrong. He dies, comes back to life, and discovers he's now a vampire. While struggling with his faith and his new thirst for blood, he falls for Tae-ju, played by Kim Ok-vin, the miserable wife of his childhood friend Shin Ha-kyun. Their affair quickly turns into a messy mix of lust, murder, jealousy, and some very bad decisions.
The film was written by Park Chan-wook and Chung Seo-kyung, loosely inspired by Émile Zola's novel Thérèse Raquin. Park Chan-wook and Ahn Soo-hyun produced, with longtime Park collaborator Cho Young-wuk composing the score. The cast also includes Kim Hae-sook, Oh Dal-su, Song Young-chang, and Park In-hwan.
Thirst was shot primarily in South Korea, including production in Incheon and Busan, with many interiors built as sets. Park deliberately made spaces like the hospital and Tae-ju's home feel cramped and claustrophobic, adding to the movie's increasingly unhinged mood.
Park had been kicking around the idea for Thirst for nearly a decade and approached Song Kang-ho about playing the vampire priest years before the script was finished. Rather than using the usual vampire rules—garlic, stakes, crosses—Park focused more on bloodlust as a stand-in for desire, guilt, and obsession. The film premiered at Cannes in 2009, where it won the Jury Prize.
Sources: IMDb, Wikipedia
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Music & editing by Meika Grimm. Follow her on Instagram, or hire her for your audio/video/web needs. 😊
