Chan-wook Park Cuts to the Quick
Chan-wook Park’s Cut opens up on a vampiress with long black hair and flowing robes sucking on the neck of her unfortunate victim, who is frozen in place. Finishing her meal, she answers her cell phone and is suddenly ill. With a flourish, she throws up her dinner in a splash of red while the camera retreats behind the crew to focus on the director as he watches the events with his production team on a remote monitor. This tricky camera movie reveals that the vampire film is just the first layer of a short film concerned with celluloid illusion and gut wrenching reality. After seeing Chan Wook-Park’s latest film Thirst , I was primed for a vampire tale, but got something much better instead. The opening scene is merely a distraction and the real horror comes after the director yells “cut!” Byung-hun Lee, of recent GI Joe fame plays a premier director who is kidnapped along with his wife by a psychotic extra. Said extra has snapped with the realization that his director idol has it all...