The intentions of Natural City are interesting. It is about a couple of decades late, however, as Blade Runner has already done the “Cyborg’s have feelings routine” as as Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed franchise, amongst many, many others that have simply retold the same tale in various guises.
Natural City’s plot is fairly simply, regardless of the complexities it attempts to portray to the viewer. There is an incredible obvious twist in the plot. The sort of twist which is drawn on a black board with big pointy arrows saying, “here comes the twist”, and it’s disappointing in that regard, as the twist isn’t really a twist as it is a long drawn out way of saying, “you knew this was coming, but we thought we’d take you for a ride”
R is a soldier, stealing dead cyborg implants to trade with Dr. Grio, in order to bring his love, a cyborg named Ria, back to full health. She only has a few days remaining before she’s terminated by the city auditors (or something along those lines). Dr Giro has other plans which are revealed later, but pretty obvious due to his super-evil perverse behaviour. In the mix is Noma, R’s superior who’s trying to make R realise the error of his ways of falling in love with a cyborg, and for stealing implants. Then comes Cyon, a girl who has an element of her DNA which Dr. Grio maintains R needs to get in order to save his cyborg girlfriend.
Visually, the film is drop dead gorgeous and brilliantly segregates the dystopian nightmarish world of those living without technology against the city which is at the heart of advancement in cybernetics and the like. The choice to use dark filters when showing the “natural” city is quite interesting and works well, even if it’s a technique that’s been overly used over the years. There is an excellent contrast with the bright, colourful and artificial world of the advanced city which is very well created with the help of modern CGI techniques, blue screen technology and miniature models.
Where the film fails is in two key aspects of all film making: script and characterisation. The biggest failure with the characters is not in the acting, but the lack of any dimension or personality to the characters. They seem rather abstract and out of place within the film, with no real emotive drive, nor any purpose in what they’re doing.
The acting is fine, that’s not really a problem. It’s just you feel nothing for any of the characters at any point. You feel nothing for R and his tragic pursuit of saving his girlfriend, who’s likely to end up being recycled and used as a toaster. Cyon is meant to be a disparate girl, lonely, no family and rebellious, but comes across as rather pathetic and empty. Noma is like a nagging housewife when it comes to R, and at times you’d swear the two were either married, or at least had a homosexual relationship that both agreed never to mention again, even they really want to do it again.
There are echoes of every sci-fi film with cyborgs, every sci-fi film involving dystopian futures and power struggles, as well as some echoes of Blade Runner itself being the most obvious influence (which in itself wasn’t wholly original). However, it has neither the sophistication, the talent, the mystery nor belief or quagmire that Blade Runner represented when I was just a itty bitty child trying to understand how they created such a mind blowing world. Natural City lacks not just charm, but character. There is simply nothing unique about it to make it stand out, and it doesn’t improve on anything that has already been out; it simply repeats what’s been done and tones it down with contrived notions of a melodramatic romance between a man and his TFT monitor which never works.
Natural City’s action scenes are quite something though, even if they are, once more, echoing what Hollywood has already done commercial. In reality, what the Matrix had done had been done before, just not on such a scale and not with such gloss. Still, Natural City prefers to imitate rather than innovate, and even the fight sequences seem to scream “Me Too!!” in a bid to show that money has been spent to make the film look all modern. We have the now obligatory somersaults, slo-mo cartwheels and bullets hitting the environment as the bad guy starts travelling up a wall like magic. We’ve seen it before, we’ve seen it done better; it still looks good though, so credit for a solid attempt at copying something done about five years ago already.
A particular dilemma the film faces, perhaps something all modern day Korean films have, is its suggested obligation to copy what’s already out there instead of creating something fresh and original. The vast majority are Korean imitations of Hollywood franchises. There only seem to be about two or three directors in Korea who are actually pushing forward cinema in a direction that hasn’t been followed, with thoughtful and thought provoking cinema. The rest seem content with copying Hollywood, and even their neighbours Japan, in what they call Korean cinema.
Min Byung-Chun has not made a disastrous film, it’s just lacking in anything special amazing enough to make it stand out from the crowd. It has no likable characters, let alone believable ones, and there is too much focus on an unsympathetic love between a man and his electric screwdriver.
The moral and ethical implications are never raised or discussed, something which Blade Runner manages with intelligence and style. Natural City is just a simple, generic sci-fi film. Having said that, it’s a step up from the unpalatable puke that is The Chronicles of Riddick or similar sci-fi junk, but that alone is not enough to make the film outstanding or enjoyable. This film is neither a sci-fi epic, nor anywhere near the quality that Blade Runner was and still is. The unfortunate thing about Natural City is perhaps it’s 20 years too late to be considered interesting.
Verdict: No originality, depth or intelligence. A worthwhile rent on a dull, rainy day