AKA: I’m A Cyborg But That’s OK
DVD review (region 2)
Directed by Park Chan-wook
Starring Lim Soo-jung, Jung Ji-hoon
Release date Out now

Young-goon (Lim), a young woman who’s convinced she’s a cyborg on a secret mission, becomes a patient in a psychiatric hospital. When she refuses to eat, Il-Soon (Jung), who believes that he can steal people’s characteristics, attempts to help her…

Park Chan-wook follows up his masterful, blood-drenched Vengeance trilogy with an unexpected stab at romantic comedy – although it perhaps goes without saying that this is like no romantic comedy you’ve ever seen before.

Young-goon isn’t exactly your typical heroine. Her unwavering conviction that she’s a cyborg leads her to spend her days chinwagging with vending machines and fluorescent lights - and naturally she always carries around a lunchbox full of batteries just in case she needs recharging. In a couple of the barmy fantasy sequences dotted about the film, Young-goon’s fingertips and mouth transform into guns and she happily blasts away at the staff and patients around her. But otherwise this is entirely free of Park’s trademark ultra-violence, and it proves that the director is just as capable of handling light and capricious as he is dark and brooding.

Visually, too, this is a much brighter movie than Park’s earlier work, with the action depicted in gorgeous pastel colours. It all adds to up to a strange, sweet-natured delight that feels a little like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest remade as a whimsical romantic comedy. And how can you not love a movie in which a ladybird whisks the heroine off to the country to the accompaniment of some toe-tapping yodelling?

The DVD includes a lengthy Q & A (via a translator) with Park Chan-Wook at The Barbican, a behind-the-scenes featurette and an entirely incongruous pop video by lead actor Jung Ji-hoon (better known as Rain). Matt McAllister

VERDICT: 9/10
An utterly bonkers and often brilliant comic fantasy.

Click here to view the trailer.
Click here to visit the official website.
Click here to read our interview with Park Chan-wook.