Review of "I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK."

Review of "I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK".
By Ben Rinehart



In Park Chan-wook’s second to most recent movie, I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK, the critically acclaimed director goes somewhere where he has not gone before: an asylum.

This witty and, at times bizarre, romantic comedy, set in a South Korean mental asylum, is perhaps Chan-wook’s happiest and most charismatic delivery yet. The story revolves around two characters: a young girl (Young-goon) who believes that she is a cyborg, and a young man (Park Il-sun ), who is both a kleptomaniac and suffering from anti-social schizophrenia, who falls in love with Young-goon.


The story opens up with Young-goon working on an assembly line. As instructions are read out over a loud speaker to all of the workers, Young-goon soon hears some very peculiar messages. She believes the loud speaker is telling her that she is a cyborg and that she needs to recharge. Subsequently, she cuts open her wrists and inserts electrical wires, which she duct tapes into her wrists and plugs into the wall. Obviously, this is taken as a suicide attempt, and she is transported to the mental hospital.

It is here where she meets Park Il-sun, who instantly sees her as someone to help. What is interesting in this story is the extent to which Park Il-sun, someone who self-professedly has no soul and can steal other people’s souls, tries to help Young-goon. Young-goon refuses to eat, thinking that all she needs to do is recharge. At lunch she simply licks batteries, until the orderlies see this and take away her batteries. She then goes on an imaginary killing spree, shooting bullets out of her fingers and destroying the building. She then, “shuts down” from sheer exhaustion. It is here where Park Il-sun saves the day by creating a device which can convert food into energy, which saves her from starvation. In the end, they both fall in love and have a wonderful picnic on a hill.

I was surprised just how happy this movie was in comparison to Chan-wook’s other movies. It had a quirky, almost manic feel to it, which helped to make this movie very endearing. Though it was at times a little slow, especially towards the end, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and would recommend it to anyone interested in watching a genuinely happy and interesting look into the psychology of the human person.

My rating: 3½ stars