A young priest (Kang-ho Song) volunteers for a medical experiment which turns him into a vampire. Struggling to keep his humanity, he must contend with not only his thirst for blood, but his lust for a young woman (Ok-bin Kim) as well.
This film was yet another reason added to the list of why South Korea makes some of the best horror or horroresque films as of late. Chan-wook Park, the man behind the well done Vengeance trilogy brings his skills to bear once again. He has a great visual style of storytelling. This film gives you a good dose of horror, eroticism, romance, and dark humor. That is a lot of what I want from a vampire film. There is a great story here, and blood, plenty of red, raw, gushing blood.
The budding romance between the priest and the girl starts off as if it is a bit of salvation for both of them. The girl who never really knew freedom meeting the boy that needs love and acceptance. It turns very dark as the film progresses though, turning salvation into damnation. The acting is incredibly well done, even though the movie is subtitled it lost little, if any, of the emotion that the actors were conveying on screen.
The only real complaint I would have about the film is its length. Clocking in at over 2 hours, the film could have been tightened up a little bit. It isn’t perfect by any means, but it is a good film with a dark story and real characters. You could do worse when it comes to vampire films, much worse. I’m looking at you “Lost Boys 2: The Tribe”. The film also deserves, no, requires, to be seen more than once I think. My second viewing gave me a bit more insight into what the story really was. South Korea pleases me again 3 1/2 Axes.