Movielogr
Cyborg She (2008)
Directed by Kwak Jae-yong
Twitter Facebook Google+Science Fiction | Romance | Disaster
Overview
A lonely university student develops a romance with a beautiful interesting woman, who turns out to be a cyborg from the future.
Rated PG-13 | Length 120 minutes
Actors
Haruka Ayase | Keisuke Koide | Risa Ai | Yoshikazu Ebisu | Ken'ichi Endô | Kenta Kiritani | Fumiyo Kohinata | Rio Matsumoto | Rokuro Naya | Megumi Sato | Yuriko Yoshitaka | Kazuko Yoshiyuki | Hiromasa Taguchi | Naoto Takenaka | Ryosuke Nagata | Suzunosuke | Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi | Naoko Niya | Horiken | Masatō Ibu | Kaito Kondô | Sakura Mizuno | Yasuhiro Roppongi | Ayumu Saitô | Kei Tanaka | Yuito Ôwada
Viewing History (seen 1 time)
| Date Viewed | Device | Format | Source | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08/02/2022 | TV | Broadcast | TV | 6.5 stars |
| (Average) 6.5 stars |
Viewing Notes
Update: I watched the beginning again during the rebroadcast -30min or so. It plays a lot better now after seeing the entire film. It is a romance flick and a comedy flick and action and disaster etc. Still stand by my “wish fulfillment” comments but at least there’s more to the story. Also the Haruka’s Cyborg kicks ass during the sparse action beats. Bumped my rating a half point.
DKUTV is doing an all female cyborg night starting with this movie which I think is a rom-com? It sorta is. The heavy wish fulfillment/ incel angle is a turn off (“let’s make a movie where lonely dude gets a gorgeous woman to be by his side and do whatever he wants”) but the FX esp the earthquake stuff is extremely well rendered and the time travel loop is interesting. Just wish it had more depth than “guy gets girl of his dreams” spun out of a WEIRD SCIENCE plot. There’s also some shots to remind the audience that yeah this cyborg is hot and has all the curves in case you weren’t paying attention.
/rant
On the plus side yeah Haruka Ayase is very easy on the eyes and does a good job being the cold cyborg. Film also features three of the best working character actors in Japan: Naoto Takenaka, Kenichi Endo, and Fumiyo Kohinata. In fact the last Japanese film I just watched last night featured two of those three!
It’s set in Tokyo which is always neat to figure out where the on location stuff is filmed. Dude’s apartment has a view of the TMG twin towers in Shinjuku which I find hard to believe (and his place is huge and old fashioned). He’s a college student so how does he afford it? He works in a fast food joint!
This type of movie really shouldn’t be 2 hours long but the Korean director (dir. MY SASSY GIRL, for example) is accustomed to the repetitive storytelling and not trusting his audience. Typical in many Korean films, sadly. So we get a rehash of many of the same beats including an near entire replay of the opening sequences but at the very end. Ugh. Instead of all that it would’ve been nice to include more action beats to showcase what this cyborg can do.
Also weird viewing now but there are two sequences that include a mass shooting and hostage situations. Obviously the writers can’t predict the future but really uncomfortable to see now. I suppose at the time (even now) these situations are so rare and uncommon in Japan so why not present them in this movie.
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