"I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK"

The Korean Director Park Chan-wook is definitely a freak. I saw his movie "Old Boy" couple years ago. The violence and cruelty in the movie freacked me out- eating raw octopus, cutting one's own tongue, unblievable revenge, ...., and the story itself was crazy and outrageous. I don't believe that can happen in any place in the world. But I was intrigued by the director's fantastic imagining. If I have to pick the two most beautiful violent movies- I'll say KILL BILL and OLD BOY.

So when I found out that Park has a new movie showing in San Francisco Asian American Film Festival this week, I was really curious what it is going to be. According to the introduction on the official website- this movie "I'm a cyborg, but that's OK" is a "fantasy-laden love story between a girl who believes herself a cyborg and an insecure kleptomaniac". I said to myself, this cannot be too bad. The movie didn't disappoint me. It turned out to be a comedy happened in a psycho hospital- every patient has their own fantasy. The main actress character (Young-goon) is schezophrenic that she believes herself a cyborg (and her granny believed herself a mouse), the main actor character (starred by Rain) steals things from people just to prove his own existence- because he is afraid he is going to vanish into a dot. All the other supporting characters have fun and cute personality- a fat woman believes by scrubbing her two magic socks, she can fly anywhere; another one carries a mirror around and tries to audit a singing character in the movie "Sound of Music". Comparing to the evilness in "Old Boy", characters in this movie seem to act out of good will. However, Park still keeps some of his favorite violence element in the movie. A couple of bloody scenes were in Young-goon's imaginary fantacy.

The plot itself is not that creative- no more creative schizophrenic patients' fantasies . But Park smartly inbeded some of his lessoning in the movie, like when a person is out of sympathy (stolen), he/she can be cruel. The supposed-to-be-macaber tale was told in a comic way which reminds me of Amelie. I like many cute parts about Young-goon's behavior- her cyborg talking to vending machine, recharing herself by putting batteries between her fingers. And I also like the idea that "Thusday" can be stolen.

One of my personal requirements of a good movie is that the color sheme has to be right. I have to say that Park is very good in this. The move starts with red where female workers in red uniform working in a facotry production line, then Young-goon cut herself- red blood was everywhere. Green was another major color in the movie with beautiful green grass and green masks. And I wonder what Park has about the hair style of his characters- the Oldboy guy and the Cyborg girl both have bushy big hair.

Overall speaking, the movie is entertaining and fun. The slogan of the 2008 San Francisco Asian American Film Festival is "Sometimes you have to get out of the real world to get into other's imaginary world'. This movie is definiltey one to satify that!