Review of I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK (2006) by Giorgos T — 13 Apr 2015

Young-goon is mentally ill, who imagines herself as a combat cyborg. Her problems are: first, she doesn't want to eat and thinks she needs electricity to be charged; second, she wants to send denture to her grandma, who has already been sent to a mental hospital for thinking she is a rats and eating radish only; third, she needs to figure out what her grandma wants to tell her about the ultimate meaning of living. After she fails to charge herself, Young-goon is also sent to a mental hospital, where she meets a bunch of wardmates with different symptoms but equally powerful imagination. Il-sun is one of them with schizophrenia and kleptomania. believing he can steal everything in the world. Il-sun is to help Young-goon solve her problems and meanwhile pacify his own inner wounds.

This story is generally about how the two schizophrenic patients comfort each other and fall in love. Crazy!

Chan-Wook Park is the director with his unique style in film language. His works are very recognizable and always with great fun (to some extent, as those of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Wes Anderson). I like Chan-Wook Park's works for their beautiful appearance-jumping cut, flexible camera, bright colors and interesting soundtrack- rather than the story itself. Olyboy, Stoker and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance are all about cruel revenge and are a little too bloody for me. Besides, for me. it's difficult to get why those stories develop and end in a certain crazy way, maybe because I'm just not as crazy as those characters in the stories.

But I really enjoy "I'm a Cyborg. But That's OK". Yes, it's still crazy. But who cares how crazy it is, since all the characters live in a mental hospital. We cannot understand their imagination world. Just enjoy! There is no much bloody in this film. Happiness and cruelty are very well balanced.