While Kwak’s “My Sasy Girl” was a slam-dunk hit throughout Asia, “Windstruck” met a far more mixed reaction. “Windstruck” pretty much bombed at the korean box-office while doing extremely well in Japan. Thus, Kwak’s third installment is made in Japan with an entire Japanese cast and the Japanese funding needed to produce such an ambitious film. Kwak’s “Cyborg Girl” shares more with “Windstruck” than “My Sassy Girl” in style and theme, making it a fitting final piece of his “Sassy Girl” trilogy.

The story in “Cyborg Girl” works well, especially in the first third and final third portions. In the beginning we’re treated to Haruka Ayase’s cyborg girl meeting the otaku’ish Jiro (played by Keisuke Koide). This set-up allows for a lot of cute moments between the girl robot without feelings and the boy that has feelings for the girl robot. The middle portion of the film unfortunately falls into a rut. Several episodic moments felt entirely unnecessary or even straight up boring. The trip back to Jiro’s hometown nearly put me to sleep and the hostage situation felt like it was thrown in just to satisfy a final running time quota. Fortunately the final third of the film picks up the slack noticeably and installs genuinely touching moments between the cyborg girl and Jiro. Of course this being a Jae-yonug Kwak film expect some surprising twists towards the end of the film.