This film is loaded with tin man symbolism (Rain's [RAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!] mask goes from a standard rabbit, to a more metallic tin man type one. The female victim who thinks she's a cyborg (standard programming, see Angelina Jolie and others) hears voices when using some machine (see above) and it essentially programs her for assassination (unsuccessfully), the voice tells her as a cyborg she must lose specific emotions/actions (which it calls 'the seven deadly sins', standard using a real thing with fake elements to confuse the victim) like sympathy (main one), feeling lost, daydreaming, guilt etc, and note the picture of the cat in the book. The green padded cells featured on above movie poster for it. Below video is one method of programming a "random" school shooter; make them think they're a cyborg, destroy their emotions so will feel nothing when it comes time to pull the trigger, program them to dissociatively remove the physical guns from their hands and make them think their fingertips are where the bullets are coming from.
Standard MK themes also feature like electroshock usage to compartmentalize memories (it's set in an insane asylum, a lot of programming takes place in these places around the world). I'm always amazed when I catch random movies like this at 1:30 AM that fit so well with the themes of my blog. The actress (stroke model) who plays the insanely cute protagonist won a best actress award for her performance in A Tale of Two Sisters. The first part of the entire movie is embedded below; here's another obviously MK symbolic movie (Spy Girl) which has major checkerboard usage (at 4:11).
Plot synopsis:
The film takes place in a mental institution. Young-goon, a young woman who believes herself to be a cyborg, refuses to eat and instead administers electric shocks to herself. Il-sun, a young male patient hospitalized for anti-social behaviour and schizophrenia, who believes he can take other peoples souls, befriends Young-goon. After Young-goon is given shock treatment, she believes that she has been recharged and fantasizes about killing the hospital staff who had previously taken her mentally-ill grandmother away. In reality, her physical condition begins to deteriorate rapidly. By convincing her that he had installed a food-to-electrical-energy converting unit (a rice-megatron) in her back, Il-sun gets Young-goon to eat.
3 comments:
Ben!
Wow you've been busy my friend!
This is truly bizarro world!
Great find!
Be well mate!
Cheers Mike. I wanted to say how much I enjoyed your recent hubble/fractals postings, the beautiful imagery seems to literally (this is how I felt anyway) pull your mind out of all the organized chaos/madness in a way, a great antidote to a lot of the depressingly true things that exist in the world which we often write about. Looking forward to reading your latest, looks to be interesting stuff.
On your comment in Programming with a Pole; totally agree with your sentiments there, and yeah no worries on the backuping up front (my paranoia has been on top of that ;P) I occasionally back it up saving as html, txt and xml using this free service, which seems pretty effective anyway.
Good to speak to you again bro, cheers.
Hi, I have recently found out about your blog, the contents of which bring many other pop-culture "phenomenon" associated with the themes of concern in my mind. I was thinking of Chanwook Park's films also, though I had never thought about the Cyborg one before reading this one.
You could perhaps expand this post with other films directed by him, the very star filmaker of South Korea and Canne. The checker floor theme is reoccurring in his films, like The Thee Extremes, which is horror film consisted of three Asian directors' stories.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rIz7WEKGTs
Another reoccuring theme in his movies is human/animal and killing of animal. (In 'Lady Vengeance' and 'Old Boy') There is also kidnapping and phedophilia theme in 'Lady Vengeance,' though I do not know if that appears in his other movies. (In 'Old Boy,' though, the main vengeance mechanism that becomes apparent in the end is hypnotizing the main character by which he meets his own daughter and has a sexual relationship with her after getting out of the private prison. (all of which happens through hypnotizing directed for a long period of time)
Also, reading your posts on movies makes me wonder about international film fastivals with authority in general.
Thank you!
Post a Comment