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52 out of 64 people found the following comment useful :-
A bit boring,but a very fresh film from director Park Chan Wook, 9 December 2006

Author: thebanquet from South Korea

Director Park Chan Wook is known for creating very eccentric films, including his widely known 'vengeance trilogy'. In the interviews that he had with the Korean press, he said that he made 'Saibogujiman kwenchana'because he wanted to take it easy after finishing his vengeance trilogy. While it is definitely much less violent and different from his previous films, it certainly has a strong touch that separates director Park from the average movie director.

The storyline is simple,yet it is something that has never been tried before. Two patients at a mental hospital fall in love with each other. Young Goon(brilliantly played by Lim Soo Jung)is a patient who thinks she's a cyborg, having a strong dislike towards doctors(because they took away her grandmother when she was young)and not eating food for fear that her robot-body would break down. Il Soon(played by the sensational singer Rain)is a patient who thinks that he can steal other people's abilities and has a fear of being demolished from the world.

It's simple yet complicated because there are twists and turns everywhere that Park leaves unexplained. It's not your average blockbuster, I don't even know if foreigners would like this movie,seeing as that Lim Soo Jung and Rain are not famous in the western world.(although Rain was named one of the 100most influential people by Time Magazine last year) But in a world where the film industry is running out of ideas, this film is definitely outstanding, unlike the average cliché Korean love stories filled with Cinderella stories and triangular relationships. How many people could think up such a beautiful love story that takes place at a mental hospital? After watching this film, I truly understand why Park Chan Wook is a great film director. He's not the kind of director that only directs safe,cash-guaranteed blockbusters. He's the sort of director(like Kim Ki Duk)who takes a challenge and tries to create a new chapter in cinema history. Already rumors are spreading in Korea that this film is a front runner for next year's Cannes International Film Festival. Although I think it is totally a rumor, I do wish that this competes at Cannes, a festival that elevated Park into worldwide fame.

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41 out of 44 people found the following comment useful :-
Another great film from Park, 29 April 2007

Author: fatmaninatrenchcoat from littleton, co USA

I have to say, I really don't see where all the dislike and criticisms come from. Granted, Cyborg is a far different film from all of Park's other works, and especially in the world of romantic comedies falls into the really freaking weird category, but I found it to be really entertaining. It was very sweet, but in a good way. No excessive cuteness, no magical cure to being crazy. The crazy people are crazy, and that ain't gonna change anytime soon. The cinematography and visuals were great. I really loved the set design of the hospital. And all of the side characters were a great cast of crazies. I have not watched a great deal of Korean cinema, and have never seen the leads in anything before. I live in Korea, so I'm very aware of Rain (or Be, as its pronounced here), but I thought that both pulled off their rolls very well, especially the girl. If you are looking for something fun, light hearted and a little bizarre, check this out. Just know that it is not your normal Park Chan Wook film.

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33 out of 40 people found the following comment useful :-
inventive cinema at its best, 24 August 2007

Author: Chris Docker (eyeforfilm) from Scotland, United Kingdom

Have you ever had an out of the body experience? Or a waking dream? One minute you're asleep, having this fantastic dream. Maybe you have to fly across buildings or solve a problem or any weird stuff in this dream. Then you're almost awake, but not quite. You hang on to the dream, not wanting to wake up. Don't you hate it when someone tries to rush you? Hey! Wake up! No - go away - I wanna finish my dream!

I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK reminds you of so many different movies in the first ten minutes. You try to fit it into a box. Hey! It's like so-and-so! But it's not. The vision that director Chan-wook Park presents us with is foreign, so alien to any genre, that our mind is confused. Maybe you have to give up all expectation before you can enjoy it.

Young-goon thinks she is a cyborg. A nice, normal young girl otherwise, that is her only kink. Hello mental institution. She can't eat of course - food makes her ill (really) so she licks batteries of various sorts as other inmates tuck into their dinner. She's lonely, and talks to machines. The drinks dispenser is one of her favourites. But she's not a psycho - as she will point out - "I'm not a psycho: I'm a cyborg."

As inmates go, Young-goon is fairly low maintenance. Most of the anti-social patients are weird beyond belief. But it is a young man called Il-soon who manages to reach out to her where doctors have failed. Il-soon believes all sorts of things - like believing he has the power to steal intangibles from people, such as character, attitudes or habits. His services are soon in demand among the other patients.

Young-goon has some internal conflicts. For cyborgs, there are seven deadly sins, and they give her some problems. The seven deadly sins for a cyborg are:

Sympathy. Sadness. Restlessness. Hesitating. Useless day-dreaming. Feeling guilty. Thankfulness.

Of all these sins, sympathy is the worst.

Interestingly, the inmates are like parts of the body: they compensate for each other's particular shortcomings and have very sane insights into kinds of madness not their own.

When the film becomes a love story, it is not one based on lust and idiocy. The funny farm becomes a parable for a world in which we need to believe in and accept each other's failings. Chan-wook Park has crafted perhaps the most original film of the year and one of the most moving. It comments on the nature of belief, and on a humanity that we are in danger of losing through cleverness. It features colourful characters and scenes that make us gasp. There is enough creativity in I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK for ten films, not just one. Constantly defying expectation, it even manages to treat with respect the question of mental illness (which is used largely as a metaphor or plot device). When we see the pain and suffering of real mental illness, it is clear that Chan-wook Park is not mocking.

I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK takes Chan-wook Park's reputation as a master filmmaker and builds it even further. Having established himself with films of violent realism, it may upset fans of Old Boy and Lady Vengeance. And while I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK is not about hyper-violence and the metaphysics of revenge, the dizzying array of ideas may be more than many audiences can stomach in one sitting. It may just seem so off-the-wall that you lose patience before the story gets going. Which would be a shame.

So maybe take a very deep breath. Make sure your batteries are fully charged. If it doesn't blow you out the cinema - I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK - may just blow your mind.

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35 out of 48 people found the following comment useful :-
A refreshing alternative romantic comedy, 22 March 2007

Author: Gordon-11 from Hong Kong

This film is an alternative comedy about the love between two psychiatric patients in a mental hospital.

The way the film opened was entertaining and clever. The psychotic factory girl almost killed herself under psychotic influence, against a background of cyborg looking factory workers who move in a coordinated and stereotyped way. There is really a contrast as to who is normal and who is abnormal.

The film contains a lot of absurd and yet convincing ways of how mental patients can be weird. In addition, the main characters' development are excellent. The reasons why they became psychotic were given convincingly. Despite all the absurdities, viewers get to feel for the characters.

It is an alternative romantic comedy. It does not strive to have perfect characters with the perfect life. It is down to earth and realistic. Viewing the world through a psychotic lens is definitely interesting.

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19 out of 25 people found the following comment useful :-
A wonderful, unique and experimental film but that is OK, 30 May 2007

Author: damann861 from Sydney Australia

Park Chan Wook is the talented director behind films such as J.S.A: Joint Security Area, and of course the brilliant Vengeance trilogy. So when Chan Wook first announced that his next project would be a simple love i awaited the day to see the film.

Young Goon works at a manufacturing plant assembling radio's, a young girl with a secret which is she is a cyborg. One day while working at the factory she decides to recharge herself by slashing her wrist and implanting electrical wires into the wound. This of course earns her a one way ticket to the psychiatric ward known as "New World" after being committed by her mother Once at New World she spends her time talking to vending machines, and licking the terminals of 9 volt batteries in order to recharge. She then meets a fellow patient Il-Sun played by popular Korean pop artist Rain. A former electrician who believes he has the ability to steal certain characteristics from his fellow beings, and displays the typical traits of Kleptomania. Soon Young Goon and Il-Sun bond together. However Young Goon becomes seriously ill from malnutrition. Young Goon believes Cyborgs should not consume "human" food and has refused to eat in weeks. The doctors say that she will die in three days if she refuses to show progress, which gives Il-Sun a way to connect to her soul and save her from imminent death The opening scenes to this film really caught my attention, its a beautiful looking film, the use of color in the film is so surreal and compliments the subject matter of the film perfectly. Their is a lot of depth to this film, this isn't just your mere run of the mill love story in fact its far from it. Park also returns to one his most frequent topics which is the inability of communication. Just as Ryu from Mr Vengeance or Dae-Su from Oldboy were thrust into the pits of hell because they could not, or would not, understand what was said to them or what they themselves uttered. The same can be said Young Goon who cannot comprehend her subjective universe to anyone but herself, and she has no means of communicating to its logic or meaning to us. Another theme that is played around with is the lack of a mother figure from both leads lives, both Il Sun and Young Goon had no strong mother figures in their life's, as they are either non-existent or virtually non-existent. Young Goon feels closest to her grandmother who was also mentally ill. Young Goon witnessed her grandmother being taken away by paramedics at a young age which has in-struck a fear of "white uns" or White Coats. Which also leads to some of the surreal and in that Chan Wook way bizarrely funny sequences as to where Young Goon hallucinates killing the "White Uns" ala The Terminator style There are also the mysterious words mouthed to Young Goon by her grandmother as she was being taken away by paramedics. I can't give away too much as these words lead towards the conclusion of the film, And that is where i segue to one of the main problems i had with the film. I enjoyed the film, i enjoyed the simple romance going between Il Sun and Young Goon, i absolutely adored the stories of the other residents of "New World" such as the one guy who blames himself for everything and spends his time apologizing for everything, and the movie has a really sweet seldom cute charm to it. But the conclusions comes a little too quickly and feels well somewhat flat. I enjoyed everything up to the ending, and while I do have a basic understanding as to how it ended, it's just that after an 1hr and a half of really enjoying this charm of a film, the ending came out of nowhere and in someways just felt flat, although to its credit i did like the fact that is has me thinking about it still to this day I personally think Park Chan Wook is the finest talent going around in Asian cinema. The visuals are fantastic and very reminiscent to Manga based girl infused with machinery archetype, for reference just check out the Young Goon jet pack scene or even those Terminator style scenes , after watching this film it strengthened my dream of seeing Park do a Sci-Fi Manga Based film. This is a good example of original, different and out of the box film making, and while it may not appeal to the masses. Park Chan Wook fans may tolerate this film or dislike it all together for all those reasons. But I for one do not share that view, I'm a Cyborg is in many ways a good film and in every inch a Park Chan Wook film and that is okay!

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12 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
phenomenal!, 15 May 2007

Author: dorkaaa from Iceland

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Park Chan-Wook's latest is charming and entertaining, a must see movie. The main characters are mentally retarded, but absolutely cute, and lovable. Young-Goon thinks she's a cyborg, so she talks to the coffee machine, telephone , etc., and generally eschews normal human activities like eating. In her mind, she's a cyborg and only requires a good battery recharge. In reality, she's on her way to starvation. Il-sun, a young man who supposedly possesses the power to steal another person's soul. Young-Goon takes an interest in Il-Sun because she wants him to steal her humanity, so that she'll be able to execute the doctors with her bullet-shooting fingers. Il-Sun tries to help her before her cyborg fantasies end in her own death... I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK looks like a light, romantic comedy, but it has a dark side too. Absurd, surreal, and maybe at the end we find out the meaning of existence :)

MUST SEE!

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16 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
flawed in some small ways, but overall a crazily sincere masterpiece, 30 June 2007

Author: MisterWhiplash from United States

There are ways to do romantic comedies, just as their are ways of doing sincere dark comedies set in mental hospitals, and Chan-Wook Park goes to fantastic and unexpected lengths of subverting expectations with truly nutty- and this may be the nuttiest movie to come out of Korea this, uh, month- ideas and visuals being explored, while never skimping on making these people to care about. And yes, the "cyborg" Cha Young-Goon (Su-Jeung Lim), at first seems like a typical nut, or what one might stereotype as. Indeed, as I thought more about it, what Park goes for is almost experimental; what would it be like to have as the pivotal character of a movie the person in the loony bin who is near unresponsive to other people and who won't eat any food? At first we're plunged into her mind-set: she's a cyborg, after all, and she marks up her energy levels by her toes lighting up, and takes in such energy by licking batteries as opposed to regular consumption.

But she also has a troubled past, though more-so in the memories of her grandmother, whom she was closest with, and who we see in flashbacks was tossed away into a sanitarium, as Young-Goon was eventually, instead of actually dealing with them as real fellow family members. It's hard not to get caught up further into her much more real plight when shock treatment comes around, and that the feeding tubes just won't do any good. From the sound of this it sounds like a really tragic story, and in a way it is. But on the other hand, it absolutely isn't all the same. It's Park's funniest film, loaded with his bravura sense of style that is brutally self-conscious with the camera (lots of wonderful usages of color from greens to reds to whites and blues and so on, 360' pans, high-flying shots, a great split-screen involving two characters in two separate solitary rooms connected by two cups and a string) as well as with very assured direction. To see someone make films like 'Cyborg' or Oldboy is to see someone who doesn't mind obviously flashy moments, because there are just as many moments that are more intimate in connection between the characters.

But as I said, it's a very funny movie, with the various character in the mental hospital veritable caricatures: there's one guy who got tossed in by apologizing to everyone involved in an accident he wasn't involved in, and one fat woman who when not stealing Young-Goon's food is trying to get static electricity going from rubbing her feet, and random characters doing wacky things in the halls behind main characters talking. There's a big belly laugh at the 'picture book' of the Cyborg's, where it lists the seven deadly sins, inexplicably linked to the torture and murder of cats in the classic storybook pictures. There's even an actor who comes closest to looking like the Korean Bruce Campbell! And the scenes with Young-Goon going into super-violent mode as the cyborg and shooting everything in sight ranks right up with the corridor fight sequence in Oldboy as Park at his most staggering in choreographing mayhem.

But then there's Rain's character Park Il-sun, who is the counterpoint for Young-Goon, as he's just a crazy thief in on his fifth voluntary commitment. He'll be hopping around one moment, or imagining himself going very tiny so as to not be noticed. But what the two of them share, no matter what, is vulnerability, which soon they see in each other (or at least Il-Sun sees in Young-Goon), with scenes showing either one crying their eyes out actually being earned. It's as much of a credit to the actors as it is to Park that none of this is false sentimentality, and out of the wild comedy there is subtext always present, of the director meeting the willing audience member halfway- it is a mental hospital, and no matter how crazy it can be they aren't tapped out of life completely. This makes up the emotional tie between the two main characters, and the struggle to compromise a mental state that can't be fixed and a more pragmatic goal- eating food- leads to a real emotional highlight.

Only the denouement, or what could be considered that perhaps, as there's a nuke/bomb element thrown in with outdoor rain scenes that feel real unnecessary (albeit there's a tremendous final shot for the film), and little bits involving the supporting characters that could be left out (what's with the guy that won't stop yelling?). Otherwise, this is still prime work going on, daring even, as far as blending together some real surrealistic tendencies with the kind of spirit that went into One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It takes guts to put the personal with the wacky, but somehow I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK pulls it off better than any other film I can't think of in recent memory.

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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Put aside your love of hard hitting revenge actioners...this time Chan-wook Park is taking you on an inner journey and thats OK with me!!!, 25 April 2007

Author: theNomad from Manchester, UK

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Pure treat of a film this, couldn't of come along at a better and flatter period in cinema and specially Asian cinema. Chan-wook Park bravely steps away from the formula that sent his name buzzing around the world movie scene and delivers for me one of the highlights film wise of the year.

Other comments unfairly mention this is boring, I beg to differ surely truly boring cinema is the 100s and 1000s of films that come out each year with the sole aim copying other films ideas. Namely the sequels and remakes and rip-off's we get a glut of.

This thankfully is a true unique feeling film sure One Flew Over A Cuckoo's Nest & 12 Monkeys spring to mind, but that's purely due to the setting. Closest in feel would be the films of Michael Gondry & Lindsay Anderson.

A whopping 8/10 from me, would of been 8.5 but IMDb doesn't like halves.

TURN OFF EXPECTATIONS AND SAVIOUR BRILLIANT FILM MAKING.

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7 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Even crazy people need love, 13 May 2008

Author: c-kelsall from United Kingdom

I am a big fan of Park Chan-Wook's "Vengeance" trilogy, and though I knew this would be a different beast, I was keen to see it nonetheless. It is essentially the story of two young people with acute mental problems caused by family troubles. The first, Young- Goon, is a girl who believes she is a cyborg, and is sectioned after attempting to recharge while working on a radio manufacture production line. The second is a young man played by the apparently famous Korean singer Rain (I regret to say I can't confirm his celebrity as I know nothing about Korean pop), who is certainly a talented actor based on the evidence here. He believes, and makes other inmates believe, that he can "steal" anything, including their personal traits and characteristics. Young-Goon won't eat because her delusion convinces her that if she does she will break down irreparably, but she is befriended by Il-Sun (Rain) who devotes his energies to coming up with a strategy for getting her to eat. This film contains moments of mad genius, which I won't divulge here, but for all it's flaws it's worth seeing just for the fantasy set-pieces. However, it touches on mawkish sentimentality at times (a condition not previously noted in Park's films), and initially the inhabitants of the sanitarium seem comedic caricatures who are there merely for our voyeuristic amusement. I'm A Cyborg is definitely at it's best when Park indulges his flair for stunning visual sequences and imaginative story-telling. So while I don't rate it as highly as I do his "Vengeance" films, it certainly warrants pride of place in modern Korean cinema.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Magical, very sweet and true film that unfortunately strayed from its path and comes off as convoluted and, at times, boring, 29 March 2008

Author: Mittelschmerzmeister from Greece

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

"I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK" is a film about love. It's not a film about mental illness. It's just that the protagonists are institutionalized at a psychiatric hospital. So, it's a romantic comedy with crazy people.

The film is about Young-goon, a young woman who suffers from a mental illness that has her convinced she's mechanical. Thus, she refuses to eat, believing food will damage her delicate cyborg insides. Young-goon is hospitalized at a mental institution after a strange case of suicide attempt (she inserts wires into her wrists, plugs herself and is electrocuted), and there she meets Il-sun, a young schizophrenic man who believes that he has the power to steal other people's attributes. In fact, he does that by copying their mannerisms. The two fall in love in a strange, paranoid, but very sweet way, and Il-sun ends up caring for Young-goon, who is dying of hunger. The end implies they are both cured, though I got the feeling Il-sun was normal from the beginning of the film (just a bit strange). That's the story, more or less.

It is lovingly directed, its heart is in the right place, it is very touching, its message is pure and true, but the film was not handled correctly, and it ends up, if not too personal, too incomprehensible. It's not tight, it lacks a formula that would tie all the ends together into a seamless, free-flowing film experience. Instead, my feelings while watching the movie were mixed, because an excellent scene was followed by a boring, incomprehensible scene, then by a good scene, then by a scene that didn't belong there, then by a magnificent scene, etc etc, you get the picture. All the good moments needed to be tied together. The highlight of the film is the scene where Young-goon eats. Brilliantly executed, funny and full of lyricism. Had the script been more linear, and had Park Chan-wook woven that sort of brilliance into every scene, instead of letting many of them lapse into unintelligible chaos, the film would have been truly great.

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