The filmgoers who are lucky enough to attend the 57th Berlinale (this year, from February 8th to 18th) will notice the exceptionally strong presence of Korean cinema. No less than 8 films were invited to participate in the prestigious European festival program - one of the key-events in the Old continent, along with Cannes and Venice - and are representing the peninsula (click here to see the list and full schedule).

Park Chan-Wook’s latest film, I’m a Cyborg but that’s OK opened on the second day of the Berlinale, and generated tremendous interest. All the screenings were sold out, but the reception was quite mixed. I will reserve my opinion until after I see the film, and in the meantime, I will save a little theory about which I have been doodling.

“Mr. Vengeance” as he is often nicknamed, came in person, along with the two stars of his cast: Lim Soo-Jung and Jung Ji-Hoon, better known as the pop superstar “Pi”/“Rain”), to present his sci-fi romantic comedy about love in a mental asylum.

I’m a Cyborg but that’s OK is in competition with the French-Korean production Hyazgar (Desert Dream), by Chinese-Korean director Zhang Lu, among 22 entries for the Golden Bear, the supreme distinction at the Berlinale, which will be awarded on February 17. The film’s premise sounds very promising: the story deals with a farmer, a North Korean refugee and a soldier trapped in a village threatened by drought in the border region between China and Mongolia.