Vengeance trilogy director Park Chan-wook returns with romantic comedy starring Rain

korean movie news update

Park Chan-wook(L), Lim Soo-jung, Rain
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Nov. 9 (Yonhap) -- Fresh from making hard-boiled thrillers, South Korea's Park Chan-wook said Thursday that he wanted to deliver a romantic story that "smells like fruit" this time.

"I'm a Cyborg, But That's Okay," Park's seventh feature, is to debut in theaters next month, basking in the heightened attention for its male lead, star singer and actor Rain (called Bi in Korean). Dubbed as "a kind of romantic comedy" by the director, the story of a young female mental patient who believes she is a cyborg and her male mate who chases after her marks the director's return, far from the the Vengeance triology.

"Believe it or not, it's true that this is the movie I made," Park said in a press conference to announce the end of the producton.

"It was good that I could cast young actors. Somehow I wanted to return to my childish dream. I wanted to make a movie that is as fresh as them and that smells like fruit. An age 12-rated movie that I can watch with my daughter."

Its female lead is Lim Soo-jung, who played a blameless heroine in the popular Korean television drama series, "Sorry, I Love You," which aired last year in eight Asian countries, including China, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam.

"The mental patients all have their own unique universe. It could be nothing more than an illusion in the eye of normal people. But it is an indispensible one, the only and very realistic world to that person. So if they talk to each other about their own universe, wouldn't that be a kind of what we call love?" he said in a Seoul hotel packed with hundreds of local and foreign journalists, where some scenes from the film were screened.

Making his screen debut with the established director, Rain said he saw the pristine state of humans from the wacky, disorderly mental hospital.
"I interpret this movie as a message of hope for the world. The patients in the hospital live with feelings of irritation and distance from the world, but I felt that they are very good natured and naive and more highly-focused than any normal people," he said.
korean movie "I'm a Cyborg, But That's Okay" is to be released nationwide on Dec. 7.
hkim@yna.co.kr(END)
Source: Yonhap News