I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK (2006)

This is a movie that does deal with some serious issues. Some people can have serious mental problems. In this movie I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK you have a woman in this mental hospital who thinks she is a combat cyborg. Since she is cyborg she won't eat food so instead she licks batteries. Parts of the movie are really strange. She ends up eventually falling in love with another man who thinks he can steal people souls.There are some really funny moments like when the woman tries to talk to a vending machine. They have a few scenes that show how crazy the grandmother was. She thought she was a rat and she would eat radishes all day. You begin to like all the characters even though they do have some flaws. I haven't seen many Korean Movies. You can currently stream this movie on netflix and it's a good movie to watch.

South-Korean director Chan-wook directs an original story about friendship and love in a mental asylum.Cha Young-goon (played by Im Su-jeong) develops a mental illness after her schizophrenic grandmother is interned and separated from her. Cha believes she is a killer cyborg and does not eat, and has been told that she has to master a cyborg's seven steps of perfection to get rid of her human psyche and be able to seek revenge on her grandma's captors - the men in white (paramedics and nurses). When interned, Cha meets Park Il-soon (played by Rain) a ping-pong player antisocial guy that steals other people's souls, who takes an immediate interest in her.What makes this film so especial is that the movie offers the reality both as the insane see it, from their subjective point of view, but also as what it is, that is from an objective point of view. In fact, the real facts are used more to anchor to story and makes the rest understandable than to focus on the reality itself. The craziness, manias and obsessions of the insane are presented as an an essential part of their personality, not as an aberration of the same, therefore, the para-reality they live in becomes real and acceptable for the viewer. More importantly, the script does not try to redeem the characters from their insanity, but make that insanity meaningful and tolerable for their survival. It could have been really easy to present the insane as pathologically aggressive and nasty, as most movies about madness do, or like loonies without feelings or real human heart, but the script deviates from the obvious and presents a surreal world that is full of magic, pain, suffering and happiness, in which different people with a different pathology are able to tick and connect to a deep human level.All the characters are treated with empathy, tenderness, warmth, naivety and a great sense of humor. The characters' studio combined with a light playful approach to the stories works perfectly on the screen and makes the craziness completely engaging. The movie is also a good reflection on personal identity and how important is the way we internally see ourselves to position ourselves in society and the world.The film is extremely stylish and artistic, too, from the credits to the cinematography to the lighting. The start is fantastic and the way the credits are presented and incorporated into the story. Grand class are the initial scenes of Cha working in her factory before she tries to "recharge her batteries": the contrast and sharpness of the colors, the camera angling and scene pacing create a wonderful eye candy moment that is a big contrast to the rest of the movie, dominated by pastel and white-ish colors. The movie has many surreal and dream-like scenes, beautifully filmed, which really help to convey the reality as perceived by the insane.Although the movie is cataloged everywhere as a romantic story, to reduce this story to a romance story is to devalue a film that has much more to offer. Romance is just another piece in the puzzle, the one that gives its magic to the story, the redemptive element of Cha's survival; it develops piano piano, but is not cheesy but wonderfully quirky and special.All cast members are good in their respective roles, and the main actors, Im an Rain (and the actress who plays the food-obsessed lady) are believable in their portray of their fragile but complex characters.My main critique to the movie is its pacing, that is sometimes a bit too slow, and the cohesion among all the insane in the asylum, which is obvious in some parts of the movie, but it is not well explained or shown at times. I would have liked that the director used strong colors for the whole movie, which would have been much more intriguing and worked perfectly with the stories, instead of the expected asylum whites and pastels; still, this is a personal preference, not a critique.This is a mesmerizing movie for on-mainstream film lovers. It has something special and unique that will stay with you for a long time.The movie won the Alfred Bauer Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2007.

An unusual film Chan-Wook Park has turned into fact, its unusually slow, and - yes, unfortunately - in parts rather boring film. My sense is that the primary culprit here is lack of context. Too often we see sequences of bizarre events and behavior. A development of the (love) story is not happening at all. Defame the mentally ill Go Too Far Making Fun of Mental Illness. Both uplifting and disheartening, sometimes both at onceWhat kind of person laughs at, or criticizes, a fellow human being's symptoms of distress?Conclusion: Rather heartless string of clichés

First of all let me get this out of the way. I started watching this on the Sundance channel simply because I was so captivated by the incredibly beautiful cinematography. Oh my sweet Jesus is this movie beautiful. Every single frame from this movie looks like a photograph. It looks very polished and blockbuster like, but something is different. I can't put my hand on it, but it doesn't look fake and commercial like American blockbusters. It shot in a very cinematic way, but it just seems more real.. IDK you have to see it, the way I would describe it would be like a Japanese anime style of camera framing , mixed with A clockwork orange type of story telling. It really is amazing.The story it's self is about two people in a loony house. One thinks she is a cyborg and the other thinks he can steal peoples abilities. Simple right? But so far from it. There are things even I didn't get. Its indeed very very refreshing, its a new age way of storytelling and I have not seen another movie like it. It is steadily paced, So if you think movies that take their time telling a story are boring then this won't be for you. Hell I thought It was boring, but it was just so well made that I quickly became sucked into the movie once it ended I was truly amazed with what I had seen. Im positive that if you watch this movie you will like it. Overall I gave It a 9 for how well it was made, but took a point away because It was paced a bit slowly for my taste and I deducted another point because while I did like It It wasn't as emotionally charged as other films.. Usually a movie rated a 8 or 9 for me has to have powerful emotions, which this movie is not one of them. however the movies it's self in its own right is a 10