Il-soon, a young male patient hospitalized for anti-social behavior and kleptomania (stemming from schizophrenia) becomes fascinated with Young-goon; he is described as having "no sympathy" for his fellow man, believes he can "steal" other people's souls/attributes, and frequently wears handmade rabbit masks.

Il-soon, now wracked with sympathy for Young-goon, hatches an elaborate plan to get her to eat, convincing her that he can install a food-to-electrical-energy conversion unit, calling it a rice-megatron, in her back.

After eating her first meal at the hospital, and confiding her secrets to the head doctor, Young-goon ponders the meaning of a recurring dream in which her grandmother explains to her the purpose of her existence.

Tarun hypothesized that Cyborg's relatively poor box office performance was due to its genre-busting: "The film has a slower pace than the director's previous works and it strikes a strange hybrid tone where it is far too cute to be like his dark revenge flicks, but it's a bit too dark and odd to be a cute romantic date film.

"[5] In fact, Chris Tilly of IGN condemned it for this exact reason: "Scenes veer violently from comedy to violence to tragedy, amusing and dumfounding in equally [sic] measure....

[9] Sales of approximately 780,000 tickets were considered a disappointment in contrast to Park's earlier films, Joint Security Area, Oldboy, and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, which had all sold in excess of 3 million.