thirst / bakjwi (2009)

If you're looking for a fun, sufficiently creepy movie, this is the one to watch! And it's not just any ol' vampire movie - it's about a priest who turns into a vampire after a blood transfusion gone awry (I hope nothing like this happens on my clinical service ha ha ha!), and the havoc that follows as he tries to stay true to his principles.

~ suggestive stares ~

Of course, he is able to generally control himself until he meets the woman who screws everything up. Women suck amirite??!!! She's lonely and mistreated as essentially a servant in her own household, so when protag shows up she seduces him. She is successful partly due to her high JVP and because as a priest he is horny af and understandably #downforwhatever. Lots of sexual interactions take place, most of which I found pretty cray, and one of which I found pretty hot?? It's interesting to think about the conflation of thirst for blood (aptly called bloodlust) with sexual desire in the vampire genre. It makes sense because I guess bodily fluids, necks, and gloomy men who tend to be vampires are all sexy in the cultural imagination - but I am also reminded of the conflation of violence and sex in ways that hurt people in catastrophic ways every day.

It's a Park Chan Wook movie, so of course it's filled with cool shots and startling moments and great acting. Of course, the female protag is a - do I even have to say it - literal piece of cute cardboard whose decisions don't make sense but like what's new?? Oh, and fun fact: The Korean title for this movie is bakjwi, literally "bat." I guess it was decided that that wasn't appealing enough for us sex-crazed Americans. Anyway, this film is overall a fun watch if you have a thing for vampires and mild gore like I do!

oldboy (2003)

// second viewing //

I remember being nineteen years old and watching this movie for the first time and being captivated by the unraveling mystery, the protag's pain and all-consuming drive for vengeance, and the extravagant presence of violence and profanity throughout. Now, five years later, I found my second viewing sorely disappointing. Without the shock factor of the plot, the dullness of the characters became more apparent - the female love interest is reduced to an object of sex and violence and also conveniently a plot point, and the antagonist is reduced to just an inexplicably shitty person, though he had a backstory that could have made him much more compelling if only his psychological had been explored a little more deeply.

On the whole I find the general scheme of vengeance stories to be a giant yawn. Character A shits on character B, who gets mad and spends the whole movie plotting to shit back on character A. It's like 2 Girls 1 Cup but the shit is all figurative. Character B has questionably consensual sex with a woman thirty years younger than he is. (I wonder if the movie was trying to make a point about this?) Sprinkle on some violent obstacles, finish the plot off with a twist, and you get a movie that film bros can really jerk off to enjoy.

meet-cute at the sushi bar

Is that all I have to say? I think that's all I have to say without spoiling anything since spoiling this movie would defeat the purpose of anyone watching it IMO. The acting was good! The camerawork and composition were good. The pacing of the first part of the movie where he's imprisoned in a room was great. And the octopus scene!!! I've been craving live octopus since I watched this movie five years ago and that desire has not changed one bit!

I hope I didn't hurt your feelings, Park Chan Wook. :( I still think The Handmaiden is a masterpiece and it's still one of my favorite movies, but that's probably because you had a female co-writer and her lesbian friend as a consult who probably did the heavy lifting in humanizing your characters. I hope you learned something and I look forward to your next movie! Hwaiting!!!

battle royale (2000)

A class of teenagers are brought to a remote island under the guise of a class trip and forced to kill each other off until one remains. It's a brutal setup that's been a part of our cultural imagination, taking on many forms from Robinson Crusoe which I never read, to The Hunger Games trilogy which I ashamedly took part in. There was something about this film in particular that felt more succinct and distilled, a specific meditation on what it is like to be confronted by the idea of the death of others as an antidote to your own death. The characters were all interesting and engaging to watch, with their own unique motives and ways of coping, which was great, and the fact that they were kids made their acts of passion more believable. Of course, the female love interest was mostly a shell of a human being and served only to give emotional support to other men, but hey, just like prostitution is the world's oldest profession, so are cardboard female love interests the movie industry's oldest unhealing leg ulcer!!!

The pacing was fast, which I liked - we're told in stark text that the country is falling apart, that adolescents are boycotting school and youth crime is on the rise. In reaction, the "adults" pass the BR Act (Battle Royale) that allows for the premise of the movie. We're not told why or who in the world thought this was a good idea, which is perhaps comforting because it allows us to momentarily laugh at how preposterous and fictitious the premise is - that is, until we remember that the world we live in is no different in how it pits individuals and groups of people against each other in order to maintain a certain power hierarchy.

#distressed

Stylistically, I loved the white text on a black screen that would immediately appear after each death, showing the name and assigned number of the character that had died as if they were inevitable, each just one more number on a scoreboard displayed for the audience's benefit. Occasionally, during the deaths of more prominent characters, the camera would linger on their lifeless body and the text would appear right on top of that image, without the black background, forcing the audience to confront the gruesome fact of slaughter.

Overall this movie that does a great job rendering this kill or be killed narrative that we are so familiar with. It's immersive, and sweet and horrifying at once, though fairly easy to digest because the horror isn't anything new or backhanded. It's not unsettling to watch because they are children and perhaps we don't infuse within them any kind of lasciviousness or twisted deceit. They are simply trying, as we always are, when confronted with danger imposed by the existing world.