20 Amazing South Korean Movies You Must See Before You Die
6. Thirst
Having brought us his idiosyncratic take on robotics with I'm A Cyborg, But I'm OK, Park Chan-wook returned with an equally original reimagining of vampires in this gaudily erotic reworking of Émile Zola's nineteenth-century French adultery novel Thérèse Raquin as a story of contemporary Korean bloodsuckers.
Song Kang-ho (Memories Of Murder's bumbling detective) here plays a Catholic priest who contracts a deadly virus but makes an incredible recovery through blood transfusion, leading the faithful to flock to him as a miracle worker.
From here he is a man transformed with a newfound vigour, but only if he continues to consume blood. Then there's the small matter of his new congregation bringing in one of his childhood friends and said friend's sexually unsatisfied wife who has a thirst of her own for the virile priest.
Thirst is undoubtedly a horror film, but one that is beautifully shot and pulsating with lust-filled desire (it also pushed boundaries by being the first Korean movie to feature full-frontal male nudity).
It has smart ideas about the overlap between spiritual and carnal needs and desires, but all of that comes wrapped up in a deliciously gory piece of murderous melodrama.