Movie Review: I'm a Cyborg But That's OK

I'm a Cyborg But That's OK (Ssaibogeujiman Gwaenchanha) 

Starring: Su-jeong Lim, Rain, Hie-jin Choi, Byeong-ok Kim, Yeon-mi Lee, Yong-nyeo Lee, Dal-su Oh, Jun-myun Park, Ho-jeong Yu, Byeong-wun Park, Seong-hun Cheon, Do-yeon Kim, Young-soon Son, Joo-hee Eun, Jung-yong Lee 

Director: Chan-wook Park 

CJ Entertainment, Joy Fund, Moho Film, South Korea, 2006.

A girl named Young-goon (Su-jeong Lim) works at factory that builds radio receivers. She goes into mental hospital after cutting her wrist and sticking in electric wire because she thinks she is a cyborg. A woman named Sul-mi (Yeong-mi Lee) who pushes Young-goon's bed around the hospital and tells her about the other patients in the beginning is also revealed to be a patient who suffers from mythomania i.e. pathological lying. 

Young-goon works in an electronics factory

Young-goon's mother and Dr. Choi

Sul-mi is not a real nurse

Young-goon's mother (Yong-nyeo Lee) left her to be raised by grandma (Young-soon Son) who suffered from schizophrenia and thought she was a mouse. Young-goon's delusions began when grandma was taken to mental hospital. Cyborg Young-goon is missing her operation manual so she does not know her purpose in life. She does not eat food because she thinks she gets her energy from batteries. In the hospital there is an kleptomaniac young man Il-soon (Rain), who wears a cardboard bunny mask and steals different things from other patients. He can also steal personal traits and skills such as Gop-dahn's (Jun-myun Park) appetite and another man’s ping-pong skills. Il-soon is anti-social schizophrenic who fears that he will shrink into a dot. 

Young-goon and Gop-dahn

Il-soon with a mask

Il-soon without a mask

Young-goon believes that her grandma is suffering in another hospital because grandma does not have her dentures. Young-goon wants to return the dentures but to do that she must shoot the hospital staff. However she feels sympathetic about the hospital staff so she must get rid of her sympathy first. She asks Il-soon to steal her sympathy. Shock treatment recharges Young-goon energy levels and she goes on fantasizing about killing all the doctors. In these fantasies she turns into a killer cyborg with fingertip machine guns.

An unusual romance begins

Young-goon in killing spree

Il-soon begins to feel compassionate about Young-goon. Young-goon gets weak because she is starving, so Il-Soon must come up with a plan to help her. He also tries to control her destructive fantasies.

Ladybug rescue!

Chan-wook Park is best known for his gritty vengeance themed thriller movies "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance", "Oldboy" and "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance". Those films were full of stylish cinematography, brutal violence and dark humour. "I'm a Cyborg" is much lighter in tone but still very unconventional and challenging movie. Still the movie is cute, touching and charming. All the characters are quirky and eccentric, even Doctor Seul-Gi Choi (Hie-jin Choi) is hinted to have some hidden traumas.

Although the movie has some similarity with romantic comedies, this is by no means a regular date movie. Music is mostly cheery comedy style music and colours are bright, contrasting the tragic histories and traumas of the patients. The movie's theme is quite dark and surreal with themes of mental illness and anorexia. The point-of-view changes between real events and the hallucinations of the patients. The ending does not give hope of miracle cure for the two main characters but at least both of them are happier in their own weird way having found their purpose in life. 

Rating: Very good