Having enjoyed previous films from director Park Chan-wook, The Vengeance Trilogy and I'm a Cyborg, I was keen to see what he would bring to the vampire genre; I was not disappointed. Kang-ho Song plays Sang-hyun, a Catholic who volunteers to take part in an experiment to find a vaccine an incurable disease. He catches the illness but unlike everybody else he survives after a blood transfusion and people believe he is a miracle worker. He soon discovers that he requires more blood if he isn't to relapse. Working in a hospital he gets the blood he needs from a coma patient. When he is invited to join in a game of mahjong with a childhood friend he realises blood isn't the only thing he thirsts for; he is drawn to his friend's wife Tae-ju. They are soon in a physical relationship and she tells him that her husband has been abusing her, in order to protect her he kills his friend during a fishing trip. Soon after the two lovers are haunted by the guilt of what they did and Kang-ho lets slip that she was not in fact abused; on learning this Kang-ho kills her but is so overcome with guilt that he gives her his own blood and she returns as a vampire. She is not like him however; she is not satisfied with blood stolen from the hospital blood bank and starts killing people. He may have given up the priesthood but he still believes that it is wrong to kill people so takes drastic action to prevent her from killing again.
This was a really good story which was an interesting twist to the genre and avoided the usual clichés; there were no fangs, garlic or harm from religious symbols. The acting from Kang-ho Song and OK-bin Kim, who played Kang-ho, was very good, the development of their relationship seemed believable despite their unusual circumstances. As one would expect from an 18 certificate vampire film there was plenty of gore, there were also quite a few sex scenes although it didn't feel like they were there for titillation. I would certainly recommend this to anybody who likes vampire films unless they have problems reading subtitles.
This was a really good story which was an interesting twist to the genre and avoided the usual clichés; there were no fangs, garlic or harm from religious symbols. The acting from Kang-ho Song and OK-bin Kim, who played Kang-ho, was very good, the development of their relationship seemed believable despite their unusual circumstances. As one would expect from an 18 certificate vampire film there was plenty of gore, there were also quite a few sex scenes although it didn't feel like they were there for titillation. I would certainly recommend this to anybody who likes vampire films unless they have problems reading subtitles.