If any indication was needed to show the rapid growth of the Korean film industry, Natural City is likely to be included as the industry’s foray into big-budget, visually stunning, but emotionally empty sci-fi. With a concept strikingly similar to Blade Runner, Natural City uses its twenty-year advantage to capitalize on recent technical advances in filmmaking, but somehow loses most of the emotional depth, despite a greater focus on the cyborg-human relationship.
The film begins with a promise made by R, a proud and skilled MP officer, to his love, Ria while he sleeps on her lap savoring the bliss of a simulated vacation program. The stark reality of the situation is soon revealed as he’s forced to part from the girl, who is in fact a robot, and enter the bleak city and continue his job. Within the first few minutes we segue into standard sci-fi themes, slick special effects and beautiful skyline views of the city.
The resemblance to Blade Runner continues as renegade combat cyborgs—attempting to prolong their life span—raid facilities to find a DNA match for a human to whom they could transfer their consciousness. We would expect R, a member of the prestigious MPs, to go on a hunt Deckard style to methodically eliminate the threat. However, this is where the film diverges, as entire squads of MP’s clad in layers of armor get their asses kicked by one skilled cyborg while R, the selfish, unsympathetic character he is, follows his own rules and makes Ria his number one priority.
And of course, to show she is his number one priority, the script decides to omit any semblance of love between the two. R comes across as indifferent, while Ria’s love seems to stem more from R dominating her memory banks than any sort of human-like feelings. Noma, R’s superior officer and apparent friend plays the heroic type, blurring the line between antagonistic pain in the ass and determined cop-friend. Also in the mix is a poor girl from the slums named Cyon, who seems to be that DNA match the villains are looking for, but we don’t really care about any of this.
Spliced in between the romance and high tension sci-fi drama are flashy action sequences with skilled hand-to-hand combat cyborgs who proceed to dodge bullets fired by masses of trained MP’s with intricate flips, quick-cutting kicks and occasional incomprehensibility. Despite the lack of originality—the film often resembles the Matrix and other Hollywood Sci-fi— the action is still a visual treat, especially with the stylish slow motion shifts in the middle of a flip and then back to real-time twirling. But sadly, cool simply lapses into the illogical, as our two protagonists dramatically manage to hold their own against the same cyborgs that took apart hordes of just-as-qualified MP’s.
While Yu Ji-tae and Lee Jae-un put in strong performances for terrible characters, Natural City’s visuals will end up sending more quivers down your spine than the emotional climax of the film. It’s a step in the right direction for the industry—the film looks better than a majority of Hollywood flicks— but until someone writes a story worth telling, this all remains rather meaningless.
Reviewed by Tarun
