Sang-hyun, a priest working for a hospital, selflessly volunteers for a secret vaccine development project intended to eradicate a deadly virus. However, the virus eventually takes the priest. He nearly dies, but makes a miraculous recovery by an accidental transfusion of vampire blood. He realizes his sole raison d’etre: the pleasures of the flesh. Winner of the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival, [Thirst] is presented in an extended version, with over ten minutes of extra footage. This version poses a question with which the director has long wrestled: where the distinctions between the sacred and secular, and between the abstinent and debauched ought to lie. The form of a murder-divine has been an issue of the transcendental being since ancient times. Park Chan-wook, on the prolongation of his prior films such as [Old Boy], has flung this film into the pursuit of extreme reasoning and pleasure beyond human order. (LEE Sang-yong)