I'm a Cyborg

Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance trilogy – Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Old Boy, and Lady Vengeance – transformed him from South Korean cinema’s most promising visionary into an internationally revered auteur. The series also cemented his reputation as a master at exploring death, revenge and violence on screen. A Park rom-com was always going to be a slightly different proposition. However, this is no mere dalliance; I’m a Cyborg… is no less engaging or careful in its composition.

Young-goon (Lim Soo-jung) is a cyborg, and needs an electrical current to survive. It makes perfect sense to her, therefore, to cut open her wrist and plug herself into the mains; to eschew food in favour of licking batteries; and to only befriend other machines. The world at large seems to find her behaviour odd, however, and duly confines her to a mental hospital… There, she strikes up a touching bond with Il-sun (Jung Ji-hoon), who has an uncontrollable tendency to steal other people’s souls. A musical romance unlike any other, with extraordinary visual ideas (hold on for the airborne Alpine yodelling sequence) and lovely performances from two of South Korea’s most revered pop culture icons.

Aida LiPera, Edinburgh Film Festival Programme