I’M A CYBORG, BUT THAT’S OK

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I’M A CYBORG, BUT THAT’S OK

Aug 14, 2018

Writer by Pierce Conran
View509

2006｜105 MIN | SF, Romance, Fantasy

DIRECTOR PARK Chan-wook

CAST LIM Soo-jung, JUNG Ji-hoon, OH Dal-su, KIM Joo-bok

RELEASE DATE December 7, 2006

CONTACT CJ Entertainment

Tel: +82-2-371-5500

Fax: +82-2-371-6340

Email: filmsales@cj.net

Reportedly made so that his daughter would be able to see one of his films, PARK Chan-wook’s I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK (2006) is a curious transitionary film for the visionary filmmaker. Made directly after his acclaimed ‘Vengeance Trilogy’, which comprised Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Old Boy (2003) and Sympathy For Lady Vengeance (2005), the SF-romance-fantasy is both the lightest film in the auteur’s filmography, as well as the oddest. Though a commercial disappointment at home, the film bowed in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2007 and found several fans on the international festival circuit.

Young-goon, a young girl with black hair and bleached eyebrows, has developed a condition that lands her in a mental asylum - she believes herself to be a cyborg. Refusing to eat, for fear of breaking down, the young girl talks to vending machines and licks batteries, and while she slowly withers away from lack of sustenance, Il-soon, another patient in her ward who believes he can steal personalities, tries to come to her aid.

Though less violent than his previous work, I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK continues PARK’s fascination with odd behavioral traits and sees him double-down on ornate production values, with particular attention given to pastel colors in RYU Seong-hee’s production design. There’s a childish sensibility to the film’s many fantastic elements, all of which foreground the quirks that are unique to PARK’s directorial vision.

In a sense, I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK is something of a palate cleanser for the director, before he moved on to his gothic cycle of film, which kicked off with Thirst (2009), and also included his English-language debut Stoker (2013) and the BAFTA Award-winning The Handmaiden (2016).

Yet beneath the indulgent imagery and the whimsical storytelling, which is less narratively driven than his other works, PARK’s sixth film also seeks to pose a grand metaphysical question - what is the purpose of existence? Young-goon's character may have lost her connection to reality, but only because the meaningless of the pain she has seen tear apart her family has made her question the very meaning of her own reality. Thus, she lives through her delusion as a cyborg, an entity with a clear purpose - in her case a dark retribution, just as in PARK’s previous works.

Director PARK is currently busy in the editing as he prepares to bring his first project to the small screen, the BBC and AMC co-production The Little Drummer Girl. Based on the novel of the same name by John le Carré, the six-episode limited series is due out in November.

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