Je suis un cyborg

Director Park Chan Wook is known for creating very eccentric films, including his widely known 'vengeance trilogy'. In the interviews that he had with the Korean press, he said that he made 'Saibogujiman kwenchana'because he wanted to take it easy after finishing his vengeance trilogy. While it is definitely much less violent and different from his previous films, it certainly has a strong touch that separates director Park from the average movie director.

The storyline is simple,yet it is something that has never been tried before. Two patients at a mental hospital fall in love with each other. Young Goon(brilliantly played by Lim Soo Jung)is a patient who thinks she's a cyborg, having a strong dislike towards doctors(because they took away her grandmother when she was young)and not eating food for fear that her robot-body would break down. Il Soon(played by the sensational singer Rain)is a patient who thinks that he can steal other people's abilities and has a fear of being demolished from the world.

It's simple yet complicated because there are twists and turns everywhere that Park leaves unexplained. It's not your average blockbuster, I don't even know if foreigners would like this movie,seeing as that Lim Soo Jung and Rain are not famous in the western world.(although Rain was named one of the 100most influential people by Time Magazine last year) But in a world where the film industry is running out of ideas, this film is definitely outstanding, unlike the average cliché Korean love stories filled with Cinderella stories and triangular relationships. How many people could think up such a beautiful love story that takes place at a mental hospital? After watching this film, I truly understand why Park Chan Wook is a great film director. He's not the kind of director that only directs safe,cash-guaranteed blockbusters. He's the sort of director(like Kim Ki Duk)who takes a challenge and tries to create a new chapter in cinema history. Already rumors are spreading in Korea that this film is a front runner for next year's Cannes International Film Festival. Although I think it is totally a rumor, I do wish that this competes at Cannes, a festival that elevated Park into worldwide fame.

Cha Young-goon thinks she's a cyborg. She works in a factory, where the employees all wear bright red and sit in neat, identical rows. One day, she slits her wrist and inserts an electrical cable into the wound in an attempt to recharge herself. Unsurprisingly, she is committed to a mental hospital.

The hospital is coloured in a similar stylistic vein, with lovely pastel shades of primary colours. It's all very different from writer/director's Park Chan-wook's previous films; his bleak Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance fades into black and white half way through the film. I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK is definitely a radical departure, although it does retain Park's visual quirkiness.

Young-goon has Cher-like hair, and wide, innocent eyes; we instantly fall in love with her. Once committed, she begins talking to vending machines and strip lights, using her grandmother's dentures. She also refuses to eat, preferring instead to lick batteries. This attracts the attention of mask-wearing Park Il-sun, fellow patient and kleptomaniac. But Il-sun is not your average, run-of-the-mill pickpocket; he steals the intangible, such as memories, table tennis skill, or politeness.

It is not long before Young-goon enlists Il-sun to steal her sympathy. You see, Young-goon needs to rescue her grandmother, who has also been committed, and kill the doctors holding her prisoner. But she can't stop worrying that her victims have grandmothers of their own. And, as we all know, sympathy is one of the seven deadly robotic sins. (The others include thankfulness, hesitation, and useless daydreaming.) It's all very strange. Refreshingly strange, in fact. Two odd highlights are a yodelling interlude, and an extended Peckinpah-style bloodbath, complete with finger guns. The unusual plot and set pieces are complemented by an equally unusual look. Park's idiosyncratic visual flair translates well from the darkness and violence of his vengeance trilogy, to the lighter world of this romantic comedy. The mental hospital looks like no hospital I've ever seen, with bright green padded rooms, deep red maintenance corridors, and even a hiccupping grandfather clock. The CGI, whether due to budget constraints or artistic choice, has that artificial quality seen all too often, but here it adds to the films carefully crafted aesthetic. It's almost as if we're seeing the hospital through the eyes of the patients; everything seems not quite real. Or perhaps too real.

There is a shaky start, though. Throughout the first half of the film, as we are amused by Young-goon's robotic shenanigans, we are also distanced from her. I'm a Cyborg's charming eccentricities threaten to overwhelm the proceedings, bury the characters in their own strangeness. Thankfully, the really quite genuine relationship between Young-goon and Il-sun injects some much needed humanity, and as the film progresses, we begin to learn more of, and sympathise with, Young-goon's plight.

I'm a Cyborg is one of those rare and welcome films that you cannot help but smile through. Young-goon's innocent eyes, the hospital's pastel-coloured walls, the glorious flights of fancy; it all makes for one of the most charming, and definitely the oddest, romantic comedy I have seen in a long time. Odd in the good way, though.

Like all good movies, "I'm a Cyborg" is more than the sum of its plot points. So don't be put off by the synopsis. Normally, the minute I'm hearing "modern fairy tale", "touching love story", or "poetic images", I'll turn tail and run. But when I found out this is by the guy who made "Old Boy", I knew it had to be different. And it is. Think "Angels of the Universe" meets "Twelve Monkeys", packed with visual thrills. The opening sequence is one of the biggest kicks of its kind.Wheels are spinning are gears are grinding in pale translucent green, vaguely reminiscent of x-ray images. It turns out we are observing a Cyborg's inner life, cleverly interwoven with the opening scenes of the actual feature. Before we really understand how Cha (cover girl Su-Jeong Lim) ended up on the funny farm, the camera is gliding downstairs in an impossible dolly shot, smoothly passing through closed doors, down to the asylum's mysterious sub-basement with its candy-colored pipework. In the course of the movie's 105 minutes, Chan-Wook Park takes us from Seoul to the Swiss alps and back again. I say, forget Bollywood. South Korea is the new Hollywood.

The director's stamp is all over I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK. It's filled with the trademark beautiful visuals, bold uses of colour and CG flourishes fans of Park Chan-wook will appreciate. Also familiar from his Vengeance Trilogy are the imaginative fantasy sequences, and a similar score that gives off the impression of a director putting on a pair of comfortable slippers.

The film though is a disappointing misfire. While it picks up in the second half where something resembling a plot kicks in, far too much time is spent on frankly boring episodes, with a script that seems content to observe the goings-on inside the mental hospital where the film takes place without commenting on them or concern for narrative impetus. After nearly an hour or so of this it's tempting to switch off, and I wish I could say the pay-off was worth persevering for, but it falls just short.

There are a handful of wonderful individual moments in the picture, particularly in the second half: the amateur surgery to implant a device into our heroine's back, a tense cafeteria sequence where the patients are as nervous about the outcome of a meal as the audience, a couple of magical but all-too-brief musical numbers, doctors mown down in a hail of bullets. They're incorporated seamlessly into the movie, but they have a tendency to stick out like sore thumbs considering everything surrounding them is so dull.

Ultimately it's quite a touching film with some funny moments - and it looks gorgeous - but it doesn't seem to serve much of a purpose and fails more often than not in its attempts to be quirky.

Have you ever had an out of the body experience? Or a waking dream? One minute you're asleep, having this fantastic dream. Maybe you have to fly across buildings or solve a problem or any weird stuff in this dream. Then you're almost awake, but not quite. You hang on to the dream, not wanting to wake up. Don't you hate it when someone tries to rush you? Hey! Wake up! No - go away - I wanna finish my dream!

I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK reminds you of so many different movies in the first ten minutes. You try to fit it into a box. Hey! It's like so-and-so! But it's not. The vision that director Chan-wook Park presents us with is foreign, so alien to any genre, that our mind is confused. Maybe you have to give up all expectation before you can enjoy it.

Young-goon thinks she is a cyborg. A nice, normal young girl otherwise, that is her only kink. Hello mental institution. She can't eat of course - food makes her ill (really) so she licks batteries of various sorts as other inmates tuck into their dinner. She's lonely, and talks to machines. The drinks dispenser is one of her favourites. But she's not a psycho - as she will point out - "I'm not a psycho: I'm a cyborg."

As inmates go, Young-goon is fairly low maintenance. Most of the anti-social patients are weird beyond belief. But it is a young man called Il-soon who manages to reach out to her where doctors have failed. Il-soon believes all sorts of things - like believing he has the power to steal intangibles from people, such as character, attitudes or habits. His services are soon in demand among the other patients.

Young-goon has some internal conflicts. For cyborgs, there are seven deadly sins, and they give her some problems. The seven deadly sins for a cyborg are:

Sympathy. Sadness. Restlessness. Hesitating. Useless day-dreaming. Feeling guilty. Thankfulness.

Of all these sins, sympathy is the worst.

Interestingly, the inmates are like parts of the body: they compensate for each other's particular shortcomings and have very sane insights into kinds of madness not their own.

When the film becomes a love story, it is not one based on lust and idiocy. The funny farm becomes a parable for a world in which we need to believe in and accept each other's failings. Chan-wook Park has crafted perhaps the most original film of the year and one of the most moving. It comments on the nature of belief, and on a humanity that we are in danger of losing through cleverness. It features colourful characters and scenes that make us gasp. There is enough creativity in I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK for ten films, not just one. Constantly defying expectation, it even manages to treat with respect the question of mental illness (which is used largely as a metaphor or plot device). When we see the pain and suffering of real mental illness, it is clear that Chan-wook Park is not mocking.

I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK takes Chan-wook Park's reputation as a master filmmaker and builds it even further. Having established himself with films of violent realism, it may upset fans of Old Boy and Lady Vengeance. And while I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK is not about hyper-violence and the metaphysics of revenge, the dizzying array of ideas may be more than many audiences can stomach in one sitting. It may just seem so off-the-wall that you lose patience before the story gets going. Which would be a shame.

So maybe take a very deep breath. Make sure your batteries are fully charged. If it doesn't blow you out the cinema - I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK - may just blow your mind.