I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK

People can fall in love at anytime and anyplace. Its said that humans are born to love and to be loved. The world has known many love stories both real and fictional through literature, cinema, plays, theater, etc. So it wouldn't be hard to assume that any person can fall in love at any place. As in the Korean film I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK, released in 2006, the love story takes place in a mental asylum. It has been directed by Park Chan-wook. It was written by Park Chan-wook and Seo-Gyeong Jeon.

I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK, is the story of a young girl Young-goon (Lim Soo-jung),  who is mentally ill since her young age but it has not come to the attention of her mother and so she is not treated from the early stage. Young-goon thinks that she is a cyborg, a robot and not a human being. As a child she was very attached to her grandmother who too suffered mental iilness, her grandmother had a belief that she was rat and used to do weird things. When Young-goon's mother and her uncle-aunt sent her grandmother away to an asylum as she was not mentally fit, Young-goon's condition started to fall. 

She believes that she is cyborg with a cause for existence but she doesn't know the cause yet. According to Young-goon - 'the men in white uniforms' took her grandmother away just before she could tell Young-goon her cause for existence.


Another patient in the mental asylum is Park Il-soon (Rain), who has been hospitalized for anti-social behavior and kleptomania. He thinks he can rob the souls of people.
Park Il-soon because of kleptomania has this tendency to rob things, unnecessary things without feeling any kind of guilt or remorse. He is always accused by the other patients during their group therapy sessions for stealing various things. Of course those patients too are insane. A woman who has trouble with storing memories accuses him of stealing her memory, a patient who loses 5 table tennis matches accuses him for stealing his game skills, etc. Its very hilarious.

When Young-goon learns about him she wants his help. Since she believes the hospital staff to be evil - as they are like the men in white who took away her grandmother, she wants revenge. She wants to kill them. But she feels she cannot do so because she has sympathy in her. She asks Park Il-soon to rob away her sympathy so that she can have her revenge. Thus the story of these two starts.

Also Young-goon's health is deteriorating because she is not eating anything. Since she believes that she is cyborg, she does not eat the food thinking that will destroy her internal machinery. 

She only licks batteries as food. Doctors and other find it hard to convince her but its in vain. Park Il-soon does his best to make her eat. The way he convinces her and makes her eat is awesome. The story couldn't have been better.

The story has much more to offer. The final interpretation of Young-goon about her existence through dreams, dangers from pursuing it, Park Il-soon's efforts to save her without letting her know that he is actually protecting her and the end. What an end! A beautiful, innocent and incorruptible love story between two people who aren't in sanity.

The other characters of fellow patients, doctors and Young-goon's mother and grandmother has been developed and shown well. In terms of performance everyone gave their best. The movie currently holds a 90% 'fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes.