chan wook park and you have to hand it to the guy . in my eye and he not only a brilliant director but a brilliant director who can turn his hand to any genre and often provide something refresh yet still ultimately satisfy . thirst be and essentially and a vampire tale but one that play fast and loose with some of the rule of the subgenre . kang ho song play father sang hyeon and a man who unselfishly give himself over to a research program and then unselfishly kind of catch the disease they be try to cure and dy and come back . all thanks to the blood he be transfuse with . be the only one out of five hundred to survive and he become quite the celebrity to those who know him and all he want be to get back to normal . normal and however and now involve be able to leap great distance without injury and want to drink blood and get severely hot under the collar when ray of sun get on his skin . it not long before he live with a rather dysfunctional family unit who know him in his childhood and while he hide his new and strange lifestyle he find himself draw into a complex love triangle and become more acceptable of darker thought and slide down a slippery slope that could lead him from man to beast to monster . deftly blend a number of genre and park movie felt much fresh and more original to me than let the right one in ( to use a recent example ) and genuinely impress me with it approach to material that could easily have felt as well worn and rehash a any number of other vampire movie we have see over the year . it a mixture of horror and melodrama and comedy while also ponder idea such a strength of faith and the power over life and death and the downside of immortality and etc and etc . some people have complain that this genre blend approach weaken the movie but i personally find that it be a lively and entertain and always enjoyable movie help by a great central performance from song a the tortured priest and fantastic turn from a support cast with no weak link . many character get to move through a range of emotion and all do so with skill and believability and especially the young woman ( play by ok vin kim ) who become the object of the priest love and lust and affection . fan of asian cinema ( and park in particular ) and also fan of poe the tell tale heart ( watch and learn ) should lap this up and it yet another classy movie from a man who seem to take everything in his stride and always manage to put out nothing less than solid entertainment . see this if you like represent cronos and near dark and dellamorte dellamore aka cemetery man .