'I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK' it sounds like one person saying one thing and then someone else replying with their own opinion. In a sense, that's exactly the narrative for 'Saibogujiman kwenchana', which I can only entrust with the World Wide Web actually means 'I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK'. The film is a romance of sorts but between two people of varying mentalities: one deluded enough to think they're something they're not and the other smart enough to know what they are but treating life as if a child inside an adult's body. In a way, this is apart of the film's overall downfall the sweet and somewhat humorous look at a budding romance using psychological problems as a backdrop.
In a sense, you have to admire what the director, Chan-wook Park, has done here and that's if I've read into it correctly. I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK seems to be about Korea's ever growing world of technology, modernity and gadgets. Whether it's a statement on a generation's struggle to come to terms with the introduction of all this technology is entirely down to the viewer but for me, the film is a fable about that. In this day and age, everybody of a certain age seems to need mobile phones, pagers, computers with access to messenger services merely to keep in constant contact with friends in the world. The sorts of people in the mentioned criteria in terms of age are exactly the same as the two primary characters we follow in this film: 24 year old Park Il-sun and 26 year old Cha Young-goon.
I think the film is a statement more so on the coming to terms with the introduction of all this technology and modernity rather than an out and out study of two people who are suffering from specific psychological studies. Park II-sun is an attention seeker and Cha Young-goon is an anorexic; that much we can figure out for ourselves and that's pretty much how it goes down in terms of establishments. There is a brief back-story to do with Young-goon's grandmother being taken away but I don't think it acts as a dramatic enough catalyst for her eating disorder to begin.
So rather than include scenes that suggest an in depth study, the film spends most of its time having Young-goon shooting up the hospital asylum they're all staying at as well as throwing in other such dream sequences to do with socks that enable you to fly. As a character, Young is perhaps so unable to come to terms with the post-modern age of gadgets that have wormed their way out of the factories and amongst the people in the Far East, that she deludes herself to be a machine of some sort. In this case, she is an interesting study of the filmic body; a hybrid of woman and machine but through imagination only. This potential fear of technology and inability to fit into a social network of cell phones, gadgets and gizmos to keep in touch with everyone explodes with disorientating and random outbursts of scenes in which she shoots up the asylum and its employees. Briefly, she sheds the weak, anorexic skin and possesses brilliant power alá Robocop or The Terminator. She combats her fears and frustrations by becoming what she fears most: a robot, a machine - a piece of brutal modernity.
So while the ideas under the surface may well be right on, I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK is really just a cute and somewhat pleasant film that passes time rather nicely. The bizarre content of an avant-garde nature is fine in the sense it is dealing with people of a damaged psyche anyway but the film's general rhythm is distorted; we can be going through a phase of long cuts complete with people talking softly to out and out chaos, be it a guns blazing dream sequence or a scene in which someone imagines they are thirty centimetres tall then there's the scene I mentioned earlier to do with socks that enable you to fly, and yodel.
The study of young people here is key; this is not One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or that bizarre chain of scenes from Twelve Monkeys in the asylum and the film never reaches the heights of quality of those films. Instead, the Far East's constant updating and introduction of technology in countries steeped in rich history quite literally dating back centuries is the focus. The young people who are congregating in this film are not of that fast paced, technology driven life and yet they still find difficulty in getting on with one another; something that makes Young and Park's relationship all the more rewarding. The film is a love story at the end of the day about one individual who thinks they're a robot but is actually anorexic and someone else who believes they can steal people's souls when really they're probably crying out for attention.
Park is able to get that attention with Young, and is able to act out 'repairing' her which pays reference to whatever's imaginatively inside her; his belief of being able to 'take' souls is played into being able to 'fix' gears and cogs but it's the fact he believes he has actual access to people's insides that counts here. Given this, they are each other's remedy: Young enables Park to come to terms with human interaction and Park aids Young in her eating disorder; the truly odd thing may be that neither of them ever quite knew it.
In a sense, you have to admire what the director, Chan-wook Park, has done here and that's if I've read into it correctly. I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK seems to be about Korea's ever growing world of technology, modernity and gadgets. Whether it's a statement on a generation's struggle to come to terms with the introduction of all this technology is entirely down to the viewer but for me, the film is a fable about that. In this day and age, everybody of a certain age seems to need mobile phones, pagers, computers with access to messenger services merely to keep in constant contact with friends in the world. The sorts of people in the mentioned criteria in terms of age are exactly the same as the two primary characters we follow in this film: 24 year old Park Il-sun and 26 year old Cha Young-goon.
I think the film is a statement more so on the coming to terms with the introduction of all this technology and modernity rather than an out and out study of two people who are suffering from specific psychological studies. Park II-sun is an attention seeker and Cha Young-goon is an anorexic; that much we can figure out for ourselves and that's pretty much how it goes down in terms of establishments. There is a brief back-story to do with Young-goon's grandmother being taken away but I don't think it acts as a dramatic enough catalyst for her eating disorder to begin.
So rather than include scenes that suggest an in depth study, the film spends most of its time having Young-goon shooting up the hospital asylum they're all staying at as well as throwing in other such dream sequences to do with socks that enable you to fly. As a character, Young is perhaps so unable to come to terms with the post-modern age of gadgets that have wormed their way out of the factories and amongst the people in the Far East, that she deludes herself to be a machine of some sort. In this case, she is an interesting study of the filmic body; a hybrid of woman and machine but through imagination only. This potential fear of technology and inability to fit into a social network of cell phones, gadgets and gizmos to keep in touch with everyone explodes with disorientating and random outbursts of scenes in which she shoots up the asylum and its employees. Briefly, she sheds the weak, anorexic skin and possesses brilliant power alá Robocop or The Terminator. She combats her fears and frustrations by becoming what she fears most: a robot, a machine - a piece of brutal modernity.
So while the ideas under the surface may well be right on, I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK is really just a cute and somewhat pleasant film that passes time rather nicely. The bizarre content of an avant-garde nature is fine in the sense it is dealing with people of a damaged psyche anyway but the film's general rhythm is distorted; we can be going through a phase of long cuts complete with people talking softly to out and out chaos, be it a guns blazing dream sequence or a scene in which someone imagines they are thirty centimetres tall then there's the scene I mentioned earlier to do with socks that enable you to fly, and yodel.
The study of young people here is key; this is not One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or that bizarre chain of scenes from Twelve Monkeys in the asylum and the film never reaches the heights of quality of those films. Instead, the Far East's constant updating and introduction of technology in countries steeped in rich history quite literally dating back centuries is the focus. The young people who are congregating in this film are not of that fast paced, technology driven life and yet they still find difficulty in getting on with one another; something that makes Young and Park's relationship all the more rewarding. The film is a love story at the end of the day about one individual who thinks they're a robot but is actually anorexic and someone else who believes they can steal people's souls when really they're probably crying out for attention.
Park is able to get that attention with Young, and is able to act out 'repairing' her which pays reference to whatever's imaginatively inside her; his belief of being able to 'take' souls is played into being able to 'fix' gears and cogs but it's the fact he believes he has actual access to people's insides that counts here. Given this, they are each other's remedy: Young enables Park to come to terms with human interaction and Park aids Young in her eating disorder; the truly odd thing may be that neither of them ever quite knew it.