Oldboy director Park Chan-wook sinks his teeth into the vampire subgenre in this audacious though overlong tale of sin and redemption. Taking another twisted journey into the heart of human darkness, the South Korean innovator uses bloodsucking as the ultimate moral challenge for altruistic small-town priest Sang-hyun (The Host's Song Kang-ho) after an infected transfusion leaves him undead. Sang-hyun's consequent craving for blood is matched by a new thirst for sex, making him doubly question his faith when he begins a destructive affair with an unhappily married woman (Kim Ok-vin). The macabre farce that ensues borrows from Emile Zola's Thérèse Raquin, ramping up the 19th-century novel's key plot points with stylish visuals that even give the film's visceral splashes of eroticism and violence an intoxicating beauty. Nonetheless, it's Park's balancing act between horror, gallows humour and poignant emotion that is the Cannes winner's greatest strength, ensuring the rambling narrative remains compelling despite its increasingly illogical development.

A respected priest volunteers for an experimental procedure that may lead to a cure for a deadly virus. He gets infected and dies, but a blood transfusion of unknown origin brings him back to life. Now, he’s torn between faith and bloodlust, and has a newfound desire for the wife of a childhood friend.