After the rabid Vengeance Trilogy, it comes as a surprise to see Park Chan-wook return with a romantic comedy – albeit a romantic comedy that includes android dreams, metal illness and yodelling. Young-goon enters a psychiatric unit suffering from delusions of being a cyborg. Since Young-goon relies on a diet of batteries, she thins dramatically. Fellow patient Il-soon believes he has special abilities and everyone else is suitably convinced. His challenge is to convince Young-goon to eat.
Park Chan-wook infuses I’m A Cyborg’s surreal yet strangely realistic plot with some dazzling, almost fantastical shots and a set design that’s suitably clinical and futuristic. Although a million miles away from what he’s best known for, I’m A Cyborg is sweetly romantic, comfortably surreal and yet features the same indelible hallmarks with which he’s built his reputation. Think a symbolically inclined, leftfield take on K-Pax and you’ll be halfway to appreciating I’m A Cyborg’s alternative charm.
