Terrible?

I have only just heard of this but it seems to bear a remarkable similarity in content to "Robot Carnival", one of my favorite Japanse films.

If I had a nickel for every cigarette your mom smoked, I'd be dead.-Donna Hayward

I couldn't disagree more. I will definately be seeing this movie again. While the stories weren't profound I found them engaging and thought provoking.

I didn't laugh once, it wasn't a comedy! Are you sure you actually saw this movie!?! Perhaps if you did you had geared yourself for a comedy, and just found trouble adjusting to the fact that each of the stories dealt with serious subject matter.

the flick is completely unwatchable. totally inept. in all honesty its probably the worst pos ive seen so far in 2004 next to Torque. I mean good sci-fi usually works on a higher or more encompassing level...this crap doesnt even work as sci-fi or hell even as a basic movie. Premise alone does not make a movie and that's all this is, premise. No tact or skill brought forth at all, no characters, nothing. each story is just an idea spread over 20 minutes with people saying crap based on the idea. Not a single story works and after the first one I was seriously shocked..I honestly didnt think it could get worse. good lord was I wrong. #3 is probably the most pain ive ever felt watching a movie. sadly, this really is only riding the asian cinema buzz and its 7+ score is obvious of that.

I agree with a few of the above reviewers in saying that I enjoyed this movie, even though it wasn't terribly original. However, I don't think that being "original" should be the sole, or even most important, factor in deciding how good a movie is. The most important thing is that it can really grip you and tug at your heart, and that it can make you think about how you live your own life. Robot Stories accomplishes that with most of its character portrayals.
I especially enjoyed the 2nd story, with the Asian mother who tries to rebuild her son's toy collection. I say "Asian" mother because unlike most of the characters in the movie, who, as someone mentioned before, could be of any color or race, the mother was a very "stereotypical" Asian mother. I don't mean stereotyped in a bad way though, because as a Chinese American, I would have to say that 90% of Asian parents have many traits in common with the mother in the story. The way in which she complains about her son's messy habits and gets angry at him for being in a coma is very typical. Her anger at her son for not turning out as she would have liked only amplifies the boundless love she has for him. That movie short was one of the most touching and heartwrenching pieces I've seen in the past year, and I watch a LOT of movies, both Hollywood and foreign cinema. When I say heartwrenching, I don't mean sobbing in my seat, although that's a possibiltiy for some movies, but I mean in a quiet, reflective way, much like Tokyo Story. Now I'm not comparing Robot Stories to Ozu's work, which is surely one of the best movies, or works of art, ever created. However, I thought the feel of the second short was similar in style, at least.
Sure, the plot may bear uncanny resemblance to a lot of other plots, but that doesn't diminish its power. After all, a lot of great works of art are imitation of other great art: i.e. The Aeneid by Virgil (although I didnt' like it so much), and of course, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, which was basically a copy of Douglas Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows", although it raised the story to a much higher, deeper plane. Basically, just because a movie contains very often used themes doesn't make it bad or even unoriginal. It's the small thing, the subtelties that count, and this movie has plenty of them. I looved the humor in the third one, "Robot Love", and the first one was quite touching too. Although I liked the last one, I think they tried to get much too philosophical and deep, and ended up draggin it on a bit. Nevertheless, there wasn't a single minute in the movie where I was just utterly bored. Robot Stories does much more than grab your attetention: it grabs at your heart.

boring lame silly movie
i kept fast forwarding and i couldn't belive how did i end up watching such a movie.
really its so disapponiting

I agree that it was terrible, all things considered. It would have been novel about 10 years ago, but now all the ideas have been explored much better by cinema and other media as well. The stories are too unsofisticated and do not go beyond "feel goodyness". I am sure that artsy people who do not follow scientific and technological developments much and who are not really into sci-fi, may be pleasantly surprised and challenged by the ideas in these 4 stories, but for anyone, who have thought about these issues 10 years ago and have since moved on, these stories do not offer anything other than cheesy effects and lame acting.

The first story has an interesting premise - a couple has to adopt a baby robot for a month as a test for their ability to adopt a human baby, but it really doesn't add anything to what was already covered in depth in Spielberg's A.I. and it also looks *beep* compared to an A-movie sci-fi such as A.I.

The second story isn't really a science fiction film at all and is virtually content-free. The main idea is that it's sucks when your son lies brain-dead in a coma and you need to give doctors a permission to pull out the plug. Well, yes, indeed it sucks, but in what unique way does the story explore this problem?

The third story is funny and even nice in some ways. It has some semi-interesting ideas about the future, but the overall message is pathetic - robots need some love too. Once again, there is nothing that wasn't said in, say, Bicentennial Man. And once again, the effects are non-existent and there is no depth.

The fourth story is the most ambitious of all, and it probably fails less dramatically than others. But it still fails. May be the director had some deep message that he wanted to put there, but he probably forgot. Again, there isn't much in terms of original ideas - deathism, senile dementia and irrational stupidity. May be the viewers are expected to emphatise with that old loser, I don't know... But I certainly didn't.

Overall these films are probably worthless to a sci-fi fan. However, to a casual viewer, who lived in a cage for the last decade and was not exposed to even the simpliest ideas about the future through Internet or magazines such as Wired, SciAm, Pop. Mech. etc., would probably enjoy these (especially if he's into independent Asian films). There is also some hope for Greg Pak, seeing as he is in the very beginning of his directing career. Hopefully, he will tackle these ideas better in the future. And it's also nice to see such interest to sci-fi themes among the juries. Although many mainstream Hollywood sci-fi films (that Pak ripped off so poorly) deserve all these awards much more.

garbage.
all asian american film-makers should watch this and ask the question, "why does asian american cinema suck?"
maybe they will learn not to make the same mistakes.

I didn't think it was terrible but I also thought it was a bit pretenious. The first two stories where great, the third was terrible and the fourth was good.

The second, which had little or nohting to do with robots or sci-fi, was I think the best. The acting was great and even though it was short, I really got into the story and really cared about this woman and her son. It had it's moments of cringing, however (Did we have to add that she was "just like her son" comment?) but overall, it was great piece. I think the Pak, who apprently writes a lot of these short movies and has been getting awards for it, will prove himself as a great director/writer of indie movies but maybe he should stay away from acitng. I thought the acting and stories were great except for the third piece. Pak wasn't awful as a robot but all the characters were so wooden (was that the point?) that you didn't care that they hated him!

I think the movie had a lot of heart and while it might not have been all thtat original, I think it does a great job of showing a lot of themes through "robots". I would recommend it and am glad I rented it.