[HanCinema's Drama Review] "I'm Not a Robot" Episodes 29-30

The villainous storyline ends up being even more anticlimactic than I was expecting. Rather than our main characters saying or doing anything to prevent AZ3 from being taken by the evil English-speaking tycoons, a random character pops up and simply tells Min-gyoo that these guys are actually international criminals, immediately giving Min-gyoo the necessary leverage to cancel the deal. Do-won's plan to take over the company never made that much sense and the revelation that his business partners are literal crooks only makes him look even more stupid in retrospect.

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While the actual story here is disappointing, we do get an extremely strong sequence where AZ3 wanders around Seoul on her own. There's no dramatic tension, owing to the contrived nature of the plot, but AZ3's experience is overall a good test case explaining what she's learned by analyzing the footage of Ji-ah interacting with Min-gyoo. In short, AZ3 is an exceptionally compassionate robot, who takes her mission to bring comfort and peace to humans very seriously.

If Baek-gyoon's plan from the beginning had been to teach AZ3 to act like Ji-ah, a lot of the man's moral issues may have been more excusable. As is we're just left with copious scenes of Baek-gyoon and his team being friends with Min-gyoo. And I guess these are all right. A lot of this partying seems a bit premature, since the main story problems haven't been solved yet and no one is making a proactive effort to solve them but whatever, it's all reasonably pleasant.

Pie has a pretty good moment with her makeover, which is so radical it took me awhile to recognize her too. Now that much I have to hand to "I'm Not a Robot"- the makeup, wardrobe and set design is very good. Observe how sterile AZ3's dress looks, but only when AZ3 is wearing it. All right, Chae Soo-bin gets credit there too just for being a good actress. But even the cute little robots look great, and let's not forget Min-gyoo's house.

Although in a way that's a bit of a weak compliment. Sure, "I'm Not a Robot" looks very good, but now that the main emotional conflict between Min-gyoo and Ji-ah has been solved and AZ3 is done wandering around the wilderness, there's no longer much genuine sentiment. I don't know, maybe Ri-el could convince Yoo-cheol to not be evil, and they elope to escape their evil fathers? That wouldn't be much but I'd take it.

Review by William Schwartz

"I'm Not a Robot" is directed by Jeong Dae-yoon, written by Kim Seon-mi-I and Lee Suk-joon-I, and features Yoo Seung-ho, Chae Soo-bin, Uhm Ki-joon, and Park Se-wan.