Time magazine selected director Park Chan-wook's "Thirst" as one of the top 10 movies of 2009.
The U.S.-based weekly magazine announced Tuesday (Dec. 8) that although recently released Hollywood vampire movie "New Moon" by far surpasses it in terms of revenue, "Thirst" is the movie to go for, putting it in 10th place in the chart.
The magazine pointed out that Park succeeded in splattering the movie with "ecstasy, pain and all the bodily fluids, especially blood." Other compliments went to main actress Kim Ok-vin, whose evolution from an a “creature of mute docility” to "one of desperate ardor" followed by "explosive eroticism" then "murderous intent" was "Lady Chatterley and Lady Macbeth in one smoldering package."
"Thirst," Korea's original vampire movie about a priest who turns into a vampire and falls in love with another's wife, won the Jury prize at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Director Park is noted for his previous revenge trilogy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Old Boy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, which won wide acclaim overseas.
Meanwhile Disney's "The Princess and the Frog" was selected as the top movie of the year followed by "Up" and "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" demonstrating the power of animation. "The Hurt Locker" by director Kathryn Bigelow and based on the war in Iraq came in fourth before director Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air." "The White Ribbon," "A Single Man," "Of Time and the City" and "District 9" took filled out sixth to ninth places.
Source http://english.visitkorea.or.kr
