Now Target is not somewhere I usually expect to find Chan-wook Park movies. While I've never actively sought them out there, I'm pretty sure that you won't find Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance or Lady Vengeance on their shelves. Therefore, it was perfectly reasonable for me to think the better of seeing a copy of Thirst sitting next to G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, and beneath Star Trek. But that is, in fact, where you'll find the other two copies.
Why? Because Thirst is about a vampire. That can be the only possible reason, even though the cover (title aside) gives you no clear indication of that. Allow me to share it with you:
It doesn't exactly scream out: this is a movie in the vein - pun intended - of Martin and Let the Right One In, now does it? One could even make the argument it exclaims "erotic thriller", and not "horror film".
Eagle-eyed viewers (or perhaps just attentive ones) will also notice that Thirst is a movie about a Priest who becomes a vampire. If you've read anything about the film, you already knew that, but I'm writing this from the theoretical perspective of a Twilight fan who could, under the right circumstances, buy two highly regarded vampire films entirely by accident. Actual vampire films, to boot - Near Dark and Thirst.
I've seen the former but not the latter; if Thirst opened in Greensboro, I never saw hide nor hair of it, and any potential screening disappeared as quickly as it materialized. The quick dump on dvd by Focus Features / Universal allows me to rectify this. (There is, at present time, no indication that Thirst will be released on Blu Ray in the United States, something that seems to be the M.O. with Focus Films releases, a subsidiary also responsible for In Bruges and The Big Lebowski's 2006 re-release).
To return to the "seeing this at Target of all places", may I note that it's odd how vampire mania made it possible to find a Korean film about the moral quagmire of being a bloodthirsty priest on the shelves alongside widely available Hollywood fare? I will concede that Target periodically makes some effort to stock what it calls "IFC Films", but the section grows smaller and smaller every month and is generally a repository of Anvil! The Story of Anvil and My Name is Bruce dvds that don't fit anywhere else. Still, while I profess befuddlement at this development, it does save my Neftlix queue a slot and means that this placeholder of an entry will pave the way for a proper review of Thirst sometime soon.
Speaking of which, I never did get around to writing up the Vengeance Trilogy, an essay I half-promised a year or so ago. Ah well, back to work then...
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