spoilers
Is the movie supporting Sang-Hyun's final act of obliterating himself and Tae-Ju? I think there's clearly a bit of a Christian redemption subtext that suggests that this was a noble act. He's sacrificing his life and the life of the one he loves to save the world from their sin. This was originally how I saw the ending, with the subversive element being that the film is ironically landing on a Christian message despite being a very horny movie about a vampire priest.
But I also was reflecting now on an alternate way to see it, borrowing from Nietzsche: Tae-Ju is the one who understood the assignment. Being powerful, beautiful, strong, and eternal is an ontological good that's worth sacrificing the life of mortals for. Sang-Hyun is only clinging to slave morality because he's unhealthy, sick with the virus of modernity. This kinda makes sense because vampires are a pretty obvious symbol of the aristocracy. But obviously the movie wouldn't exactly be straightforwardly endorsing this will-to-power kind of worldview given the triumphant ending, which isn't exactly a Hegelian synthesis either so I don't really know what the movie is saying about the slave-master dialectic (or slave and master morality) if that is what it's intentionally about.
What do you think? Do you like this movie? It offers a lot to think about but it's one of the less impressive ones Chung Seo-Kyung wrote for Park Chan-Wook IMO. It's also interesting to think about what is going on with gender in this movie and Decision to Leave! Very Pandora/Adam and Eve stories, do these filmmakers hate women?
feelings on hunger, don't knows on a third thing