I went into the screening for I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK expecting (and hoping for) the worst. First off, the film was introduced by the MC (it was part of the New York Asian Film Festival) as a love story featuring killing sprees, an attempted suicide and the almost-detonation of a nuclear bomb. Secondly, the film was directed by Park Chan-wook, the South Korean director behind the pitch-black gore-fest Oldboy and the Shakespearianly bleak tragedy Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. (In Oldboy, a guy cuts his own fucking tongue out, and in Sympathy everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, dies. Oh and he also directed Sympathy for Mrs. Vengeance to end is revenge trilogy, where a pedophile captured and hacked to death by the parents of his victims.) So, needless to say, I was psyched to see some stylishly directed gore for once and not some torture-porn bullshit like Hostel: Part Two.
Surprisingly though, what actually appeared on screen was slightly different from what was advertised. Yes, the film did include a robotic woman hunting down psych-ward doctors with her machine gun finger tips, and yes, the protagonists try to nuke their mental hospital, but the rest of the movie was actually (gasp!) kinda cute. And even more shockingly, I kinda liked it.
It all begins with the suicide attempt of Cha Young-goon, played by the so-adorable-ya-wanna-squeeze-her, Su-jeong Lim. Young-goon’s mother ships her off to a psychiatric hospital where she meets a wide array of mentally disturbed inmates. But don’t worry, they’re only disturbed in comically endearing ways. One guy only walks backwards and thinks everything is his fault. Another invents a way to fly by lying face-down on her bed and rubbing her feet together. Another dresses like the Swiss Miss girl and yodels.
Surprisingly though, what actually appeared on screen was slightly different from what was advertised. Yes, the film did include a robotic woman hunting down psych-ward doctors with her machine gun finger tips, and yes, the protagonists try to nuke their mental hospital, but the rest of the movie was actually (gasp!) kinda cute. And even more shockingly, I kinda liked it.
It all begins with the suicide attempt of Cha Young-goon, played by the so-adorable-ya-wanna-squeeze-her, Su-jeong Lim. Young-goon’s mother ships her off to a psychiatric hospital where she meets a wide array of mentally disturbed inmates. But don’t worry, they’re only disturbed in comically endearing ways. One guy only walks backwards and thinks everything is his fault. Another invents a way to fly by lying face-down on her bed and rubbing her feet together. Another dresses like the Swiss Miss girl and yodels.
However, one inmate, the rabbit-masked kleptomaniac Park Il-sun (played by South Korean pop-singer and heart-throb, Rain), gets the attention of Young-goon by stealing her Thursday (see the movie and you’ll understand) while she is having a conversation with the coffee machine. Park Il-sun helps Young-goon on her way to recovery, like convincing her that she cannot subsist only by licking 9-volt batteries (trying in vain to recharge her core battery) and helping her get over the traumatic experience of witnessing her schizophrenic grandmother get sent away to the sanitarium. Soon the two of them are inseparable and they begin to plot Young-goon’s revenge on the doctors that sent her poor granny away.
Overall, this film suffers from the same syndrome that Chan-wook’s earlier films did. They are chock full of style, but lacking in actual substance. I’m a Cyborg... was fun as hell to watch, very funny and touching at times and there was enough gore to keep my bloodlust satisfied. But besides the sweet love story at the center of this sticky-bun of a movie, there wasn’t much to really sink your teeth into. However, I’ll happily admit, it is probably the best Cyborg-meets-kleptomaniac romantic comedy I have ever seen.
