General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK (싸이보그지만 괜찮아)

I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK (싸이보그지만 괜찮아; revised romanization Ssaibogeujiman Gwaenchanha) is a 2006 South Korean feature film directed by Park Chan-wook, in which a young woman hospitalized in a psychiatric institution because she believes she is a cyborg is befriended by a fellow patient who believes he can steal the qualities of other people.¹ It was released in South Korea on December 7, 2006, runs 105 minutes, and is classified as science fiction, romance, and fantasy.¹

Key fact	Detail
Director and writers	Park Chan-wook; screenplay by Park Chan-wook and Chung Seo-kyung²
Release	December 7, 2006, South Korea; 105 minutes; rated 12¹
Leads	Lim Soo-jung as Young-goon; Jung Ji-hoon (the singer Rain) as Il-soon¹
Production	Moho Film; international sales CJ Entertainment; budget US$3 million³
Box office	289 screens, 677,026 admissions, total gross $2,897,602¹
Principal award	Alfred Bauer Prize (Silver Bear), 57th Berlin International Film Festival, 2007⁴
Position in Park's career	His sixth film, made directly after the Vengeance Trilogy⁵

Spoilers

Plot

Young-goon works at a factory assembling radios and believes she is a cyborg. While at work she slashes her wrist and implants electrical wires into her arm to recharge herself, an act that gets her committed to New World, a mental hospital full of unusual patients.⁶ Firmly believing herself to be a cyborg, she refuses to eat like a human being, for fear of breaking down; she talks to vending machines and fluorescent lights and licks batteries, and slowly withers from lack of sustenance.¹^•⁵

Il-soon, another patient in her ward who believes he can steal the traits of the people he meets, takes an interest in her and makes it his goal to cure her and get her to eat real food.¹ He puts his supposed ability to work for her benefit: he steals the "sleep-flight method" so she can move freely, steals yodeling skill to sing to her when she is depressed, and, above all, steals her sympathy so that he feels her sorrow in her place. He promises "lifetime A/S", a lifetime of repair service, should the cyborg ever break down.⁷ As Young-goon's refusal of food brings her to a dangerous state, Il-soon prepares a final method to save her.⁷

The film gives Young-goon's delusion a family background: she is the granddaughter of a woman who thought she was a mouse, whose dentures Young-goon wears, and the daughter of a socially awkward butcher.⁸ By the Korean Film Council's retrospective telling, the pointless suffering that ripped her family apart drove her to doubt the meaning of her own reality, so she inhabits her delusion as a cyborg, a being with a definite purpose: for her, a dark retribution.⁵

Place in Park Chan-wook's career

Park Chan-wook, born in 1963, had made his reputation with the Vengeance Trilogy: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Old Boy (2003), which won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005).³ I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK was made directly after that trilogy and is described by the Korean Film Council as both the lightest and the oddest film in his filmography.⁵ Park reportedly made it so that his daughter would be able to see one of his films.⁵ Asked about the departure from his violent previous work, he said, "Believe it or not, I made this film," and explained that he had always wanted to tell a story about patients in a mental hospital.⁹^•¹⁰

Park, who studied philosophy at Sogang University, said the film deals with the "purpose of existence": rather than letting rational people such as doctors determine what and how, it explores "how to live" and love through a girl who thinks she is a cyborg and a boy who believes he can steal human qualities.⁹^•³ In a 2008 Barbican ScreenTalk he recalled that the first image came to him in a car during the post-production of Old Boy: a group therapy session in a mental institute.¹¹

Style and production

Though less violent than his previous work, the film continues Park's fascination with odd behavioral traits and his ornate production values, with particular attention to pastel colors in Ryu Seong-hee's production design; the fantastic elements carry a childish sensibility.⁵ Park deliberately abandoned the standard clinical representation of a mental institution in favor of a colorful place, because "the film's style supports the story and the characters".⁹

The crew reunited frequent Park collaborators: cinematography by Chung Chung-hoon, music by Jo Yeong-wook, editing by Kim Sang-bum, and production design credited to Ryu Seong-hui (Seong-hee).² The film was shot on 35mm in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio with Dolby SRD sound.³

Reception and awards

The film was a commercial disappointment in South Korea, drawing 677,026 admissions on 289 screens for a gross of $2,897,602, but it screened in competition at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival and found fans on the international festival circuit.¹^•⁵ At Berlin it won the Alfred Bauer Prize, awarded to the most innovative film.⁴^•²

Further recognition followed. Jung Ji-hoon won Best New Actor at the 2007 Baeksang Arts Awards and the Grand Bell Awards' Overseas Popularity Award (Male), and the screenplay by Jeong Seo-kyeong and Park Chan-wook won Best Screenplay at the 2007 Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia.⁴ The film also took the Z Tele Grand Prize (Feature Film Award) at the 2007 Montreal Festival of New Cinema, an International Fantasy Film Special Jury Mention at Fantasporto 2008, and the World Cinema Audience Award at the 2008 Belfast Film Festival.¹²^•⁴^•¹ Lim Soo-jung and Jung Ji-hoon received Asian Film Award nominations for best actress and best actor respectively, and Rain was nominated for best new actor at the Blue Dragon Film Awards, the Grand Bell Awards, and the Korean Film Awards.¹³

The film has remained a festival fixture in Park retrospectives, including the London East Asia Film Festival (2016), Florence Korea Film Fest (2017), and the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival retrospective (2017).¹ It is regarded as a palate cleanser before Park's gothic cycle, which began with Thirst (2009) and included his English-language debut Stoker (2013) and the BAFTA Award-winning The Handmaiden (2016).⁵

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026