I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK (2006)

Boring

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is a movie that does deal with some serious issues. Some people can have serious mental problems. In this movie I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK you have a woman in this mental hospital who thinks she is a combat cyborg. Since she is cyborg she won't eat food so instead she licks batteries. Parts of the movie are really strange. She ends up eventually falling in love with another man who thinks he can steal people souls.There are some really funny moments like when the woman tries to talk to a vending machine. They have a few scenes that show how crazy the grandmother was. She thought she was a rat and she would eat radishes all day. You begin to like all the characters even though they do have some flaws. I haven't seen many Korean Movies. You can currently stream this movie on netflix and it's a good movie to watch.

I remember randomly choosing this movie in a fantasy-horror festival shortly after it's release. After watching i haven't been able to shake of the feeling that it broke the mold of the festival.Although described as romantic comedy I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK is more than that. Yes, there is romance and comedy and yes, there's fantasy and horror elements. I thought i've sensed even some influence from Kusturica, as well, but i might have been wrong. What makes exceptional is that melds the action of SF-action-movies, some gore and art-house.What stayed in my mind has been the depiction of main protagonist's descending into madness. It's been the finest of it's kind in contemporary cinema.

First, I want to readily acknowledge that long-time fans of director Park's works hated this film. It was nothing like "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance," "Oldboy," or "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" and that is understandable. This is a very different film. But it is clear from box- office receipts that this was a flop as far as Park's country-men were concerned; they hated it too.WARNING: SPOILERS PRESENT! Young-goon (played by Lim Su-jeong) has lost her sanity. While assembling a radio in a factory she imagines that the assembly instructions coming from loudspeakers are telling her to open her wrist, insert house current wires, and plug herself into an outlet so she can recharge. She thinks she's a cyborg and her mission in "life" is to avenge her grandmother's commitment to an asylum for Alzheimer's victims. Once committed to her own asylum she refuses to eat. The staff do not understand this, but from Young-goon's perspective it makes perfect sense; she has to recharge not eat. After all she often tells the staff "I'm not a psycho: I'm a cyborg."Naturally this is a delusion, but a very complete one and since she's convinced that she is a cyborg she feels no obligation to explain her reasoning to the staff, instead preferring to converse with vending machines, radios, and light fixtures. Il-soon (played by Rain), another inmate, is a known theft of quirks, attributes, and ailments. He is often asked by other inmates to steal their insecurities or the very social quirks that got them committed in the first place. Apparently he is very effective as the inmates that have asked for his help improve mentally. Young-soon learns of this and convinces him to steal her "sympathy" (a cyborg sin) so she can effectively gun down the staff of the asylum.Of course Young-soon's "hunger-strike" is killing her and fellow inmate, Il-soon, manages to convince her that he has created a "rice megatron" that converts eaten rice directly into electricity. Once he "installs" this in her back she feels free to eat and her health improves.Of course the staff is grateful, but they don't really understand what he did or how he did it.The story is told with such care and humility that you can't help but love the characters, feel complete sympathy for them, and relate fully with them even though they are clearly not in full possession of their mental faculties. Park has deftly treated the subject of mental aberration with care.As should be expected of a Park film, the delusions of violence against the staff are blood drenched gore. After all, Young-soon as a cyborg, once her sympathy is stolen, she is a highly effective killing machine.As a love story it is very different. It is not about sex; it is, instead, a story of care and compassion for one's fellow human being.I predict that in the coming decades this will be seen as Park Chan- wook's finest film. Much like Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" was widely panned when released, but is now one of the few films he is remembered for.

With this I've seen all of Chan-wook Park's films from the 2000s. He's one of my very favorite filmmakers from the last decade. I'm a Cyborg, but That's Okay is easily the least of them. The big problem, for me, anyway, is that it represents a genre of films that I really don't care for, that is, the mental hospital picture. Popularized by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, it's the kind of film about a bunch of overly quirky patients who do crazy things. This one is also a romantic comedy, so that kind of makes it even worse. Fortunately, Park's unique sensibilities make this film at least somewhat worth watching. Su-jeong Lim plays a girl who was raised as a mouse by her grandmother. As a young adult, she started to believe she was a cyborg who as built to rescue her grandmother, who was taken away by the "white 'uns" (i.e., mental health professionals). She gets herself admitted and hopes to one day kill all of the white 'uns, but her own sympathy is keeping her back (after all, the white 'uns have grandmothers, too). Another patient (Rain, who starred in last year's action flick Ninja Assassin), is a kleptomaniac and Lim asks him to steal her sympathy so she can go through with the murder and mayhem. Just describing it makes me wonder how I liked it at all, but, trust me, Park's musical rhythms and candy-colored visuals are pretty delightful. Lim in particular is fantastic, but the whole cast shines. If you can get past the genre clichés, it's worth a watch.