It.  Was.  Genius.

I just got back from a screening of Chan-wook (Old Boy, Lady Vengeance) Park’s Thirst, and I am…I have no idea how to adequately describe what it was like to see this film.  You just have to see it for yourself.  Basically, it’s about a priest who becomes a vampire, and it keeps itself prety distinguished from any other vampire movie I’ve seen.  It’s not overly morbid, has just the right amount of sexuality and mystery embedded in it, but manages to avoid so many vampire cliches that I didn’t even recognize as cliches until this movie.  It was beautiful, disturbing, tragic, sweet, and weird.

After filming, there was a Question and Answer with the Chan-wook Park, which was very insightful.  It came to light that he has no problem with Will Smith and Steven Spielberg adapting Old Boy for Western audiences, and that he hopes he does something very different than the version that he made.  Like Spielberg, he has a deep admiration for Hitchcock, though the feelings that Park invokes seem more in line with Kubrick.  Man, do I love and loath Kubrick.

He was also really funny.  After the Q&A, I was hoping to get a picture of him strangling me, but I settled for the ironically-cliched shaka sign.

He looks much less twisted than his films.

I just came back from watching Dirty Hands: The Life and Crimes of David Choe at HIFF, and I have to admit to being deeply interested and enthralled by this piece.  I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed anything so completely raw before, and I’m thankful that Harry Kim and David Choe were brave enough to make this happen after 7+ years of work.  For those of you in Hawaii, try to catch it again on Wed, Oct 15 at 7pm.

Hawaii International Film Festival