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I just saw this movie yesterday and thought it was fantastic here's a review that I found:
CINEMATICAL
Berlinale Review: I'm A Cyborg, But That's Okay
Posted Feb 9th 2007 5:01PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Foreign Language, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Berlin, Theatrical Reviews, Cinematical Indie
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After spending the past couple years immersed in his intense "revenge trilogy" (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance), director Park Chan-wook decided to lighten the mood, step away from the violence and tell a love story. With its zany, colorful characters and off-the-wall imagination, I'm A Cyborg, But That's Okay (or Saibogujiman kwenchana) is definitely a change of pace for Chan-wook -- an alternate route, if you will. But, it's a route packed with energy and creativity; the kind that forces you to pull over every few minutes in order to observe its beauty, its grace and its fresh air.
Traumatized when her schizophrenic grandmother (who thinks she's a mouse and eats radishes all day) is sent off to the loony bin, Young Goon (Lim Soo Jung) becomes convinced she's a cyborg (or robot), stops eating (for fear the food will damage her mechanical insides) and is carted off to a sanitarium by her mother when she cuts open her wrists in an attempt to re-charge her inner batteries ... or commit suicide, as mom sees it. With her grandmother's dentures by her side (which she uses to communicate with lights and vending machines) Young Goon makes it her mission to find a way to re-charge so that she can return the dentures to grandma, kill those holding her hostage and, while she's at it, discover the purpose of her existence.
All alone and forced by her mother to keep all cyborg-related thoughts to herself, Young Goon becomes swept away into a world full of the insane, where doctors struggle to figure out why she won't eat, and fellow patients dream up imaginary superpowers to pass the time. One such patient, Il Soon (as played by the Korean singer Rain), a kleptomaniac who believes he has the ability to transfer powers between patients by wearing a mask and touching their hand, becomes intrigued by Young Goon when she asks him to steal her sympathy. Without sympathy -- one of the seven deadly sins, as preached by the imaginary voice whispering in her ear -- it's her belief that she will possess what is needed to kill those who keep her dear grandmother captive.
Thus begins a bizarre relationship between the two -- one that's so decoratively illustrated by Chan-wook's captivating visuals and pure imagination (I dare you to name another film in which a man woos a woman by pretending to implant a devise inside her back that will automatically turn food into fuel, thereby allowing her imaginary robotic system to charge up). And, while the pace is certainly a bit slow at times, it's welcoming in the fact that Chan-wook wants us to live inside this world for awhile -- to get to know the characters who inhabit it -- before shoving plot points down our throats. While we've come to expect a dazzling presentation of sharp, larger-than-life special effects from Chan-wook, I'm A Cyborg, But That's Okay steers clear from throwing unnecessary "wow factors" at the audience, save for a couple scenes in which Young Goon imagines her fingers turning into machine guns -- her wide-open mouth holding the ammunition -- which she then uses to gun down doctors, patients and anyone threatening to get in her way.
With this film, it's the beauty in the writing that ultimately wins us over. Rarely do we find a love story that grows organically throughout the film without a slew of cheesy one-liners, specially designed to incorporate into the trailer, there to bore us along. The script, written by Chan-wook and Jeong Seo-Gyeong, delicately dances along that line between comedic and dramatic, presenting us with an eccentric tale about eccentric people who desperately want to believe that they're special; that they have a purpose in life beyond the white walls of a mental hosiptal. And, in the end, it's not much different from the life outside Chan-wook's sanitarium -- from the way we, as human beings, feel about our lives, our hopes, our goals and our dreams of one day being able to look back at it all knowing we made a difference.
Tags: berlin film festival, berlinale, cinematical, erik davis, film, i'm a cyborg, but that's okay, I'mACyborg,ButThat'sOkay, movies, park chan-wook, rain, review
Taken from:
http://www.cinematical.com/2007/02/09/berlinale-review-im-a-cyborg-but-thats-okay/
And here's a page where you can get download it from:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v478773Njs9TMFj?searchId=2728437932672863047&rank=5
Cheers!
CINEMATICAL
Berlinale Review: I'm A Cyborg, But That's Okay
Posted Feb 9th 2007 5:01PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Foreign Language, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Berlin, Theatrical Reviews, Cinematical Indie
After spending the past couple years immersed in his intense "revenge trilogy" (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance), director Park Chan-wook decided to lighten the mood, step away from the violence and tell a love story. With its zany, colorful characters and off-the-wall imagination, I'm A Cyborg, But That's Okay (or Saibogujiman kwenchana) is definitely a change of pace for Chan-wook -- an alternate route, if you will. But, it's a route packed with energy and creativity; the kind that forces you to pull over every few minutes in order to observe its beauty, its grace and its fresh air.
Traumatized when her schizophrenic grandmother (who thinks she's a mouse and eats radishes all day) is sent off to the loony bin, Young Goon (Lim Soo Jung) becomes convinced she's a cyborg (or robot), stops eating (for fear the food will damage her mechanical insides) and is carted off to a sanitarium by her mother when she cuts open her wrists in an attempt to re-charge her inner batteries ... or commit suicide, as mom sees it. With her grandmother's dentures by her side (which she uses to communicate with lights and vending machines) Young Goon makes it her mission to find a way to re-charge so that she can return the dentures to grandma, kill those holding her hostage and, while she's at it, discover the purpose of her existence.
All alone and forced by her mother to keep all cyborg-related thoughts to herself, Young Goon becomes swept away into a world full of the insane, where doctors struggle to figure out why she won't eat, and fellow patients dream up imaginary superpowers to pass the time. One such patient, Il Soon (as played by the Korean singer Rain), a kleptomaniac who believes he has the ability to transfer powers between patients by wearing a mask and touching their hand, becomes intrigued by Young Goon when she asks him to steal her sympathy. Without sympathy -- one of the seven deadly sins, as preached by the imaginary voice whispering in her ear -- it's her belief that she will possess what is needed to kill those who keep her dear grandmother captive.
Thus begins a bizarre relationship between the two -- one that's so decoratively illustrated by Chan-wook's captivating visuals and pure imagination (I dare you to name another film in which a man woos a woman by pretending to implant a devise inside her back that will automatically turn food into fuel, thereby allowing her imaginary robotic system to charge up). And, while the pace is certainly a bit slow at times, it's welcoming in the fact that Chan-wook wants us to live inside this world for awhile -- to get to know the characters who inhabit it -- before shoving plot points down our throats. While we've come to expect a dazzling presentation of sharp, larger-than-life special effects from Chan-wook, I'm A Cyborg, But That's Okay steers clear from throwing unnecessary "wow factors" at the audience, save for a couple scenes in which Young Goon imagines her fingers turning into machine guns -- her wide-open mouth holding the ammunition -- which she then uses to gun down doctors, patients and anyone threatening to get in her way.
With this film, it's the beauty in the writing that ultimately wins us over. Rarely do we find a love story that grows organically throughout the film without a slew of cheesy one-liners, specially designed to incorporate into the trailer, there to bore us along. The script, written by Chan-wook and Jeong Seo-Gyeong, delicately dances along that line between comedic and dramatic, presenting us with an eccentric tale about eccentric people who desperately want to believe that they're special; that they have a purpose in life beyond the white walls of a mental hosiptal. And, in the end, it's not much different from the life outside Chan-wook's sanitarium -- from the way we, as human beings, feel about our lives, our hopes, our goals and our dreams of one day being able to look back at it all knowing we made a difference.
Tags: berlin film festival, berlinale, cinematical, erik davis, film, i'm a cyborg, but that's okay, I'mACyborg,ButThat'sOkay, movies, park chan-wook, rain, review
Taken from:
http://www.cinematical.com/2007/02/09/berlinale-review-im-a-cyborg-but-thats-okay/
And here's a page where you can get download it from:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v478773Njs9TMFj?searchId=2728437932672863047&rank=5
Cheers!