I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK

Tartan Films

R1 DVD

I'm a Cyborg is an example of the true creativity of Korean cinema, combining an unusual plot with excellent character development and lots of surprises. It is also a good example of a film that you would not find in Hollywood. It crosses every possible genre boundary. While Hollywood likes its films to be categorized and easily marketed, here is a film which is a romantic comedy set in a mental institution which mixes together every possible form of cinema. It has a darkly humorous mood but also includes set pieces which are quite confronting such as the ECT (electro shock scenes). It has sequences which could be defined as horror (especially when Young-good as the Cyborg takes aim at the whitecoats) and some truly eccentric fantasy sequences as well. It moves between the various forms effortlessly offering a very unusual cinematic experience.

The film takes place in a mental institution filled with a truly eccentric array of patients including one who believes he has a belt around his stomach to keep him safe, a large woman with an eating disorder who believes she can fly at night and a young girl obsessed with her voice. Two of the more “on the edge” patients are Young-goon and Il-sun.

Young-goon believes she is a cyborg. Her grandmother believed she was a mouse and when she was hospitalized by the “white coats” her dentures were left at home and she was unable to eat radishes. She refused to eat and her health deteriorated. This event triggered some sort of breakdown in Young-soon who attempted to recharge herself in a wall socket leading to her institutionalization. She believes she must return her grandmother’s dentures to her to say her grannies life and find out the meaning of her own. She has developed a strange set of rules to run her life by and believes that it is only sympathy which is holding her back from achieving her goal – killing the white coats and setting her grannie free.

Il-sun is a young male patient hospitalized for kleptomania among other conditions. He believes he can not only steal physical goods but peoples abilities ranging from ping pong styles to emotional characteristics. He believes he will vanish into a dot if he does not sustain certain ritualized behaviours and compulsively cleans his teeth to keep himself from dissolving. He wears rabbit masks to avoid emotional contact with fellow patients.

Il-sun is at first repulsed by Young-goon cyborg obsession, but soon becomes obsessed with her. Young-goon refuses to eat and even after ECT is fading to nothing. In one of the most touching scenes of the film, . Il-sun convinces her that he can install and maintain a "rice-megatron” to convert food to electricity in her back and is able to convince her to eat.

In some of the wilder scenes, Young-goon fantasizes about running rampant killing all the “white coats” and these are certainly filled with blood and gore. But, of course, these are just dreams and she is still locked in the hospital. As Young-goon tries to uncover the meaning of her life, she realizes her grannie was trying to tell her she is a nuclear bomb. She convinces Il-sun he must assist her achieve her goal in destroying the world.

Together they go out in the worst possible storm where Young-goon believes she will be hit by lightning and explode. However it becomes clears that while Il-sun has been helping Young-goon, he has no intention of letting her die. The film ends as strangely as it as it has unfolds with them watching the sunrise together.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 3 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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