Park Chan-wook’s erotic vampire film “Thirst” opened over a week ago in its native South Korea, but it will soon make its international bow at Cannes, where it’s one of several adventurous-looking films in the competition. Screen International, however, has got a head start and offered this review — and the news is good.

Park has been in the wilderness for a few years, but critic Darcy Paquet (awesome name, by the way) calls the film a return to the award-winning form of his 2004 hit “Oldboy.” He raves:

Since his breakthrough with Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance in 2002, Park’s work has been characterised by its visual inventiveness, dark humour, intense acting performances, and strange but compelling shifts in tone. The first 90 minutes of Thirst is a robust display of these talents, but it is anchored in a melancholic lyricism that is new to Park’s oeuvre. Although the focus of its narrative movement is not always clear, in its best moments, Thirst offers something of the poetic force of cinema’s timeless masterpieces.

He also adds the interesting (to me, anyway) factoid that the film — about a Catholic priest who becomes a vampire following a botched medical experiment — is a loose adaptation of Emile Zola’s 1867 novel “Therese Raquin.” Well, there you go. I must admit I’ve never really connected with Park’s work before, but the current spate of contemporary vampire tales is an intriguing trend. This could be one to keep an eye on at the fest.

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