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

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Very disappointed :(

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

There's not really any way to describe this movie accurately without using the word bizarre, is there? 'I'm a Cyborg' is one of the most entertaining films I've seen in a long time, with a perfectly weird combination of comedy, romance, sci-fi, and something I like to call asylum drama, which places it in an entirely new genre of its own. Despite every character in this movie being very strange and, in most cases, insane, you really feel emotionally attached and connected to them; their emotions become partially yours, and you actually care about what's happening. I think this is what makes all the weirdness so much more effective, because it impacts you more heavily while seeming like you're a part of it. The dialogue between the protagonist and her love interest is rather lovely, and their private scenes together really effect us as an audience. The visuals in 'I'm a Cyborg' provide something extremely interesting and fun to watch, and have a unique and original feel to them which I find hard to find in any English or American films - at least in the mainstream, anyway. Being set in a mental hospital often means that you'll see some crazy stuff in a film, and that's certainly the case here: not only do you experience the 'madness' of all the patients, you see most of the movie from Young-oon's perspective, meaning you spend the whole film with a 'cyborg'. While this film definitely isn't for everyone, I'd try watching it no matter who you are. It's splendidly written and performed, and I think it could surprise people.

According to plot, it may seem like we got a wonderful movie. But the whole production looks cheap and cheesy, eventually in first 20 minutes you get bored. Camera angles, light setup at the scenes, acting, editing etc. pulls the film way below what it meant to be.At an environment like a mental hospital, which includes many original characters that supposed to be the main characters of film, storytelling should have taken us into that feeling which we may experience the patients own reality. (consider that their reality is amazingly rich and different comparing to us)If this had been an animation made by Miyazaki or a creative like him,(I mean people who come up with stories which can be considered as mostly fantasy or stories that contains powerful fiction and imagination) I believe outcome would be much much better. Cause you have much more freedom at an animation specially for a movie like this.This time, as a fan of your cinema, shame on you Korea..

"I'm a Cyborg But That's OK" is a touching and romantic comedy movie about the sense of life. The movie is set in a mental institution and introduces us to a lot unique characters: a shy man who is always excusing himself, a man who believes his wife is made of fur, a fat woman who thinks she can fly, a strange couple that sings along to traditional Swiss songs by yodelling and so on. While all these characters seem to have some fun and even though the doctors and nurses are mostly nice with them, there are also a few sad scenes when they feel disillusioned and scared and seem to realize that their lives aren't completely normal. The film should have been a little bit longer and shown us a little bit more details about the fate of these characters in my opinion and even several movies or a television series could have been inspired by this film.Let's focus on the main story though. It's basically the story of Young- Goon, a young and shy woman who refuses to eat and is looking for a sense in her life. She grew up with her schizophrenic grandmother who believed she was a mouse and her parents never really took care of her. One day, her grandmother was forced to go to a mental institution but obviously not the same as Young-Goon's. The schizoid young woman has never seen her grandmother again. She misses her a lot and wants to bring her dentures she forgot at home when she was taken away by the staff of the mental institution. Since then, Young-Goon also desires to avenge her grandmother and kill all staff members of all mental institutions. Young-Goon believes she is a cyborg that needs to be recharged to gain enough power to realize her plans which is dangerous for people around her and especially for herself.In the mental institution, she meets Il-Soon who is hospitalized for kleptomania stemming from schizophrenia. The anti-social thief is a very emotional and smart person who immediately falls in love with the mysterious Young-Goon. When she is about to die by refusing to eat, he tries to protect her from herself and the staff. When he learns that she believes she is a cyborg, he develops a plan to make her eat by developing a fictional machine that converts food into electrical energy. But the young man soon has to develop further plans to protect the love of her life when she starts to believe that she is in fact a nuke bomb that requires a bolt of lightning to detonate and bring the end to the world.While the story lacks direction and feels fluffy at times, this fact isn't important as the movie is about something completely different. It wants to show us that even people in a mental hospital can be very and sometimes even more human than normal people and feel sorrow, love and hate very intensively. The way the two outsiders of the group come closer to each other is far beyond physical love. Her love story begins very slowly and at the beginning, the young woman doesn't really care about or even realize what the young man feels for her. He slowly wins her heart by each step he takes and by doing so he doesn't only heal himself in a certain way and becomes more open-minded, responsible and social than ever before but he also saves the life of the woman he desires and gives a new sense to her sad life.This movie is really touching and convinces with a strong and credible acting. The movie though doesn't only focus on the drama elements or the romantic story with profound dialogues but it also includes several moments of intelligent humour and a few action filled over-the-top scenes that break with the slow pace of the movie and feel very original and refreshing. The movie surely has some lengths and I think the film should have spend some more time on the supporting characters instead of the main story that only truly develops in the last third of the movie. On the other side, this movie is very intelligent from an emotional and human point of view and has a beautiful philosophy telling us that each day of our life is unique and that something very positive could happen any day that gives your life a new sense or unknown joys. This is a movie that any really sad or suicidal person should watch because it says more than a thousand words could do. Director Park Chan-Wook who is known for completely different movies like "Oldboy" created a truly courageous and unexpected gem that may one day be hailed as a classic. It's not a movie for anybody. At first try, I didn't adore the movie but I didn't stop thinking about and rediscovering it to get access to its pure and unique beauty. Patient and open-minded viewers should get rewarded by watching this film. Those who are looking for quick entertainment, a classic love story or a hilarious movie should change their minds before watching this.

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.