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I'm a Cyborg (2006)

Time Out rating

Average user rating

5 reviews

Synopsis

It ought to be interesting to see where the highly buzzed director of Oldboy goes now that his “vengeance” trilogy is complete. Here’s the answer: a romantic psychodrama set at a mental institution. That title is not merely figurative.

Movie review

From Time Out London

With its pastel tones, clinical mise-en-scène, a lush, Danny Elfman-style soundtrack and some wild, expressionist characterisations, this could be the sort of film Tim Burton might have made if he had started working out east. Billed by writer-director Park Chan-wook (‘Oldboy’) as something a little lighter after the baroque histrionics of his previous vengeance trilogy, ‘I’m A Cyborg’ is a knowing stab at featherlight whimsy and as intelligent and ornate a piece of work as we might expect from this gifted helmer.

Young-goon (Lim Soo-jung) is a production-line drone who spends her days assembling transistor radios. As the repetitiveness of her work sets in, she starts to believe she is a cyborg, so slices her wrists, then plugs herself into the mains. She is duly packed off to a psychiatric hospital where she courts the attention of Il-soon (Jun Ji-hoon), a young chap who wears a rabbit mask and believes he can assume other people’s identities.

As Park’s ever-agile camera glides majestically though the corridors of this vibrantly-coloured ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’, the pair try to assist each other through testing times in a film which, though lacking an overall narrative sweep, delivers moments of humour, tenderness and eccentric beauty. And yet, nestled beneath the directorial flights-of-fancy (a dream sequence where Young-goon opens fire on the nurses is a deadpan classic) is a touching fable about the fallibility of the human ‘machine’, how little it takes for it to break down, and the cost of getting it fixed up again. After a rousing, melodramatic finale, a superfluous 15-minute coda almost spoils the show.

Author: David Jenkins

Time Out London Issue 1963 – April 3 – 9

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User reviews of this film

Technoguy said...

Posted on Oct 23 2008 14:41 There's something about the far east and a compatibility with new technology.Here both Park's treating the new HD camera sysytem of filming like a
new toy,also the subject matter:being a Cyborg,talking
to machines as if they're human,receiving instructions from the radio.He has taken the logic of technology and married it up to extreme mental states of psychosis
and created this interesting hybrid.There was both the
whimsy of the Wizard of Oz and the underlying vengeance motif common to his trilogy when his 'cyborg',Young-goon turns in her dream into a killing
machine wiping away the'white coats' who'd stolen her
grand mother away.She meets Il-soon the young man who thieves people's identities and they fall in love
therapeutically. Some of the scenes show great ingenuity and there are moments of great beauty and
tenderness.The acting is very moving,the cinematography is brilliant.There are moments that are
not always clear which may require a second viewing
but stick with it and see a radical cinema.

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Nick said...

Posted on Apr 08 2008 15:49 Loved Oldboy? This whimsical offering is likely to be a disappointment. There are moments of brilliance, beauty and inspiration, but as a whole this is meandering and indulgent, lacking in any real insight or characterisation. The caricature pre-PC inmates at the asylum are both annoying and awkward, and the only real sensation at the end of the movie was relief - that it had finally come to an end.

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ben said...

Posted on Apr 06 2008 16:00 very poor. the story is complete nonsense despite the visual flair.

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Gina said...

Posted on Apr 05 2008 21:20 A different kind of film for Park, but very
clever and creative. The production design
is impressive, and it was a pleasure to watch.
One can get lost in the film and not realize
they are in a movie theatre for two hours.
Definitely worth viewing.

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Arnaud said...

Posted on Apr 01 2008 13:03 I saw this film last November at the Barbican, it was the closing film of their Korean Film Festival.
This film created such a good feeling within myself that I felt like smiling for the next few days non-stop! Amazing colours, music, acting, very funny, but as well touching and moving, Park Chan Wook managed the transition from violence rather weel, even though he hasn't lost his talent for sharp cinematography. Must be seen !

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