Blogging this week is optional, and if you do post, you'll earn 2 points of Extra Credit!! However, since you have both a final essay and a final exam to do this weekend, I'd much rather you prioritize those tasks rather than blogging. So, for those of you that are terribly behind in the points game and desperately need the 2 extra points, here are some questions to answer about I'm a Cyborg, But It's OK:
1. In class and in the WIRED article "Seoul Machine," you heard/read about South Korea's rapid rise to the forefront of global technological development. How do you think I'm a Cyborg relates to S. Korea having grown into a tech powerhouse so quickly and so recently?
2. One could say that both 2046 and I'm a Cyborg are romances/love stories first, and sci-fi stories second. Why do you think Wong Kar-Wai and Chan-Wook Park both decided that sci-fi would be a good complement to romantic fictions? How did technology and science work to illustrate or facilitate love in both films?
Good luck on your final projects for the class!!
11 comments:
1. South Korea’s rise is so much about the dedication to success that any emotional attachment they developed toward robotics and manufacturing are bound to be tied up in a national ethic. While the film is sweetly psychotic, we get a few slightly gross moments where we see an assembly line clean room in action, giving audiences something they would be well acquainted with already. The well ordered discipline required to move from an economy in peril to an electronics powerhouse is bound to make the changing society schizophrenic and caught in transition. The obsession the characters face with intergenerational relationships and memory show a fear of slipping back into a world they worked so hard to pull themselves out of.
2. Sci-fi has a long tradition of being alienated from romantic love and obsessed with adolescent fantasy, so to see it used as a vehicle for something like this always makes me smile. In the west, our romantic comedies revolve around the awkwardness of modern relationships as they have been transformed by the modern state. People are always in and around places that are either of their lives, or are featured unconventional escapes from the comedy of errors types of circumstances that we deal with in modern times. Asia’s ability to see romance and the future as directly attached has more to do with their willingness to see sci-fi as new, and that newness provides a setting for adventure and possibility that a genre invented during the Great Depression for a culture in decline is a happy surprise.
1) I believe a lot of cinema reflects most nation's technological advances, in this case S. Korea. When a country advances into a different technological age, there are people that push that front and then their are people that are sort of reactionaries, ones that are not against but wish to show the repercussions and the possible negative effects. When a nation has reached a certain level in the techno age, that nation's audiences reaction to sci-fi media in the theatre is more likely believable.
2) Why write about romance in the present when you can write about romance that happens in the future, instead of human & human, it can be human & robot. Most sci-fi romance usually involves relationship being obsessive, temporal, long distance problem, a difference interferes, but in this case it's a time gap difference. Where we see the Japanese character from the past is push to the future and ends up finding a similar love interest but again is unable to secure his emotions. You'd only see stuff like that in sci-fi, that until 300 years later when us as a audience will disregard this as sci-fi and regard it as non-fiction.
As was clearly demonstrated in 'Seoul Machine', the technological rise of South Korea was not a long drawn out process, nor was it an option. It seems to be the next logical step and South Korea approached it with a perfectionist attitude. Almost as if unless you are the best, why bother doing it? Young-Goon is almost a perfect representation of this (she even works in a technological assembly factory). When she realizes she is a cyborg, there is no other option, she must live fully as a cyborg, plug herself in and survive on batteries. Young-Goon, like the Samsung factory, became a technological advancement, and they weren't going to do it half way.
Sci-fi and romance are actually perect companions if you really think about it. Both have a sort of escapist realism and ask the viewer to ignore their sense of reality for the film. Sci-fi romances are very similar to musical romances. The music, or in this case sci-fi is used as a tool to enhance the story itself. Characters can actually fly instead of standing at the front of ship, make a rice-energy converter out of a precious object instead of standing outside with a radio over thier head. The technique may be different, but the basic format is the same.
(1) The film relates to Korea's rapid rise, in that, it is a commentary on it. The young insane girl is a victim of a society that has been so mechanized that she believes herself to be a machine. Machines are constantly telling her what to do. She even speaks back to the machines. The overwhelmingly quick expansion and development of South Korea has probably lead to many odd reactions by older generations. If their society is built of the construction and sales of electronics than their daily lives will be affected to the point that their products could have control of how their lives play out. I feel that the film was a commentary on the mechanization of the citizens of Korea.
(2) I feel that it is very evident that both films were love stories before they were science fiction. It is obvious in 2046 being that the science fiction is only used as a means to explain the protagonists inner struggle, his regret, and his confusion in relationships. In I'm a Cyborg, But It's OK behind all of the actions there lies a motive, love. If love is a motive for every action, no matter how fictional, even if fingers become guns, than it must at its core be a love story. To add a log line for this movie would probably read: A young man at an insane asylum plays along with another patients hallucinations to save her life, or something along those lines. Where science fiction is very important to the story it does not come across as top priority.
[1!] I think the one scene in the cafeteria sums it up. When Young-Goon is trying to eat rice, everyone is mimicking her exact moves because she gets a lot of attention for being a cyborg and wants that attention as well. The more they do it, the more they take on a cyborg state. It spreads like wildfire.
[2!] Romance and science fiction don't really have a direct connection. I just see it as a love story in another setting, the future. However, love itself is a mystery as big as science fiction. No one knows exactly what causes love which makes it a challenge every time someone tries to find a significant other. Thinking you are a cyborg doesn't help either. I see the science fiction representing the challenge of finding another in both movies. The characters had to look past the science fiction aspects to find true love.
1. The main character was working on an assemby line when we first see her. She is surrounded by machines and sees machines as being invincible, powerful and amazing. I think that “I’m a Cyborg” references the South Korea rise in techological power is with having a character that actually wants to be a robot so she can be invincible.
2. I think that the directors chose to mix romance and technology because they are such seperate genres. With the growing age of technology, the romance of letters and time has been replaced by texts and work. Kar-Wai and Park see that, and have mixed the two genres in a fresh new way that makes it completely unique.
1.) I think the film relates to South Korea's rapid growth in technology mainly through the character Young-goon. At an early age she believes herself to be robotic and with a purpose, much like what South Korea was producing at the time of their rise. She also so closely tied with machinery and robotics that she believes she has a connection to them and talks to them.
2.) I believe they thought adding technology or sci-fi elments would be a good way to put a new spin on a very old genre. I mean what sounds more interesting, a boy falls for a girl, the boy gets the girl..or a boy falls for a girl who is a cyborg, the boy gets the girl who is a cyborg..although they are pretty much the same thing adding in new elments such as sci-fi can make the story line much more interesting.
1.) I think the film relates to South Korea's rapid growth in technology mainly through the character Young-goon. At an early age she believes herself to be robotic and with a purpose, much like what South Korea was producing at the time of their rise. She also so closely tied with machinery and robotics that she believes she has a connection to them and talks to them.
2.) I believe they thought adding technology or sci-fi elments would be a good way to put a new spin on a very old genre. I mean what sounds more interesting, a boy falls for a girl, the boy gets the girl..or a boy falls for a girl who is a cyborg, the boy gets the girl who is a cyborg..although they are pretty much the same thing adding in new elments such as sci-fi can make the story line much more interesting.
- elliot taesoon kahng
1. Young-goon believes herself as a cyborg. However her human emotions and no food consumption are keeping her weak. No one seems to believe she’s a cyborg either. I would guess that Young-goon can represent S. Korea and the non-believers can represent America and the rest of the world….? S. Korea doing their best to advance in technology and trying to prove to the world that they have, but everyone else not being able to believe they’ll be able to, just because of their bad reputation of Hyundai cars several years back.
2. Maybe Wong Kar-Wai and Chan-Wook Park thought adding sci fi to compliment a romance story would make things more interesting than just only having a romance film…
I enjoyed the subtle sci-fi to the two films. Adding sci-fi to a romance story worked well. It created a more of a imaginative fantasy world and probably more eye pleasing for a guy to watch a romance film.
It’s not like it’s the only genre that has done so. There have been horror-thriller films with a touch of sci-fi. Also comedy films with a touch of sci-fi.
1. Pardon my informality, but I think that this was an awesome movie and such an interesting concept due to South Korea's success in the technology market. The well organized assembly line to me kind of represented the idea of a well disciplined nation that Korea has become and has pretty much always been. The ideas that in the future romances may be going on not only between humans and humans, not only between robots and robots but between humans and robots just the same. If it is possible for Korea to achieve such amazing stunts in the technological fields, why not make lovers for future generations of humans as well!
2.
1. Pardon my informality, but I think that this was an awesome movie and such an interesting concept due to South Korea's success in the technology market. The well organized assembly line to me kind of represented the idea of a well disciplined nation that Korea has become and has pretty much always been. The ideas that in the future romances may be going on not only between humans and humans, not only between robots and robots but between humans and robots just the same. If it is possible for Korea to achieve such amazing stunts in the technological fields, why not make lovers for future generations of humans as well!
2. It seems that romance is becoming less and less structured as the times go on. Years ago in a very cultural society one would not even be able to marry the person of their choosing and they would pretty much be chosen and appointed for them. The person would have to be of a certain race or religion in order to qualify for an arranged marriage. Now that we are in a more modern society we are able chose what race or religion our romantic partner can be and are not limited to what is chosen for us for the most part. It is rational to believe that in the future we will not even have to stick to the human race but we can branch of and experiment with lovers that are machines.
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