Natural City

Damn–this was supposed to be released today (4/4), but it looks like it’s been pushed back another two weeks (to 4/18). I’m REALLY looking forward to it, based on this review and the screenshots!!

Hi Curt, this is beginning to concern me as this is the second time it has been delayed at the last second (It was originally scheduled for near the beginning of March). But you remind me that I’ve intended on adding a page two of screencaps. I’ll get to this in the next day or so - Hopefully this will tide you over.

curt, why don’t you just pick up the import? I have a very nice two-disc edition I picked up over two years ago that way.

I couldn’t wait either - I got the import long ago as well. But considering a far cheaper copy should be imminent, I can see waiting.

I didn’t pay all that much for my copy. Imported from Korea, it was only a scant $14.99 plus shipping for the 2-Disc Special Edition (perhaps because I knew the seller). Most “Asia Extreme” titles (which “Natural City” is to be, I understand) are in the $19.99-$29.99 range when they hit shelves.

[…] Back in January when I started Cyberpunkreview.com, some of my reviews and screen capturing weren’t as detailed as more recent ones. Sometimes, I now feel I haven’t given some of the better movies enough detail. This was the case for Natural City. I’ve gone back and added a lot more screen captures (a whole second page in fact), along with a bit more on the review. Natural City just has some terrific shots - many of which the initial review didn’t show. I expect to do this to a few more of the reviews, including Dark City, for instance. This post has been filed under Site Development by SFAM. Permalink • Print • Email this page […]

What region is that import? I’m afraid I’m still lagging behind when it comes to multi-region capability. I’m absolutely looking forward to this, in any case. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, SFAM!!

Most Korean discs are Region 0 - this one’s no different. That said, the Region 1 disc should be coming out in like 9 days.

Just got mine yesterday and watched it twice! Thank you, thank you, thank you SFAM for bringing this movie to my attention! It’s not perfect (some characters are especially “flawed”), but just soaking in the cyberpunkishness bursting from this movie is a treat. I’d love to see more like it.

Thanks for the kind words, Curt. To me, the more I watch this, the more I love Ria. Check my thoughts on page 2 of this review if you haven’t already.

I just won this in a contest yesterday! I can’t wait to see it.

Wow DeadImpulse! That sounds like a pretty cool contest. Congrats!

I reluctantly picked up Natural City at a Best Buy recently. Im always afraid to do this with foreign films because stupid Americans feel they need to edit everything and make it more “friendly” to us. I also picked up Oldboy here as well. Im starting to fear that both decisions may have been bad ones.

Can anyone tell me if there is a difference between the American and Korean versions of Oldboy and Natural City? Given that neither one of my copies says anything about being a directors cut, nor do they have any editing credits to a studio or person outside of its native country.

Hi Jesse, In looking at Amazon, it appears that the US R1 release of Natural City is just as long (113 minutes) as the Korean Import. The back of mind says 253 minutes, but I know it’s not that long (and I can’t read the rest of what the minutes relates to, but I’m guessing its the combined extras). Yesasia claims the Korean version is 112 minutes, so again, I’m guessing there is no difference in the film.

Regarding Old Boy, I’ve heard only good things from the US release of this. I doubt this is mucked up either. I do agree with you though about getting US versions - After picking up the “Vampire Effect” which was chopped and shortened version of the “Twins Effect,” I always check very carefully.

The other issue of course is the horrid dubbing that sometimes accompany them. The worse example of this for cyberpunk movies is the Italian movie, Nirvana. The US release doesn’t have the original Italian on it, and only comes with a truly horrid dubbing. It appears though that the R1 version of Natural City has subtitles, so again, I’m guessing you’re fine. But does this post mean you watched it and didn’t like it? If so and some parts come out incoherently, I’d recommend reading my comments on Page 2 of this review, and give it another viewing. It took two tries for me to fully appreciate Natural City.

I’ve yet to watch it again. I’ve been meaning to. I can not give an honest opinion yet. Although, I can say that I enjoyed most of it. As you said it took you two viewings to appreciate it, and I know why. It’s definately a film with a hell of a lot of ambition. Films like these are guaranteed to get multiple viewings from me before I can really digest the whole thing the way it was meant to be.

Casshern is also a great example of this. You absolutely can not fully appreciate Casshern unless you’ve seen it multiple times. I must have seen that one around 7 or 8 times, and each time getting something new and deeper from it. I liked it the first time around just for the “ooh-ahh” factor, then after watching it over and over again you realize it is much, MUCH deeper than just that.

BTW, when are you going to run a page 2 on Casshern? I’d love to see a discussion on how people translated some of the symbolism or philosophical issues.

Oh wow - I promised to do a second page on Casshern a while ago. I even have the write-up on the symbols and deity stuff mostly done. I’ll try to get to this in the next few days. And I definitely agree that both movies have enough depth that they definitely require a second viewing - especially Casshern.

I actually feel asleep half an hour before the end, but that’s my fault for having too many late nights :P. ‘Natural City’ offered some great visuals and, as a character story, is very well done.

Best (uh…one of only two :P) Korean film I’ve seen yet.

Hi Hugo, Natural City worked very well for me the first time through, but I absolutely loved it upon second viewing. The character stuff, especially Ria, really jumped out at me more that time.

I thought you might be interested in this, SFAM - a reviewer for the Sci-Fi Weekly has trashed Natural City: http://www.scifi.com/sfw/screen/sfw13336.html

He gave it a D+, saying it’s “Blade Runner, but with a story that sucks”. Ouch.

Ah well, not everyone will like Natural City. I’ve encountered a few people who consider it a cheap Blade Runner knock off. This is a fine opinion to have but I disagree with it, as I do the reviewers comments about the characters, especially Ria.

This movie is a modern Blade Runner reminiscence.
Enjoy.

IMHO it’s Blade Runner II .
Really good movie (sometimes acton is too slow).
Thanks to SFAM and this site I started to like Korean movies .
Really impressive.

I agree with hugo and that sci-fi guy. This movie made me sleepy. and that the story was very illogical and hard to follow didnt do it any good either.

Hi Bo, give it another viewing if you get a chance. You might find it becomes more coherent on the second pass - and check page 2 for some spoiler discussions.

Unfortunately, I could just not enjoy this movie. In fact, I found myself skipping ahead near the end, just to get it over with.

As SFAM mentioned, this movie is slow paced. It just dragged on, and dragged on; with nothing ever happening.

And R. The guy was the scum of the earth; causing the deaths of many people, and showing no care about anyone other than himself. This gave me no reason to care about him at all; and therefore, I didn’t care about the movie at all.

The beautiful Cyberpunk visuals were great, but not enough to save this movie.

Eric

Hi Eric, sorry it didn’t work for you. I always feel bad when I cajole people into spending money to watch a movie, only to find out they didn’t like it. I obviously feel differently about it though.

Nice review SFAM, ill probably pick this one up just to see the visuals alone hehe, but the story sounds solid from what you said in your review.

Just watched it

Excellent visuals and acting from the two leads with brilliant production. Quality sets are used in different ways that probably saved a great deal of money yet didn’t make itself obvious.

My only problems were with the squad fight scenes (the camerawork got real sloppy) and the ending, which drags on (as others have noted).

Overall pretty good. Presented familiar themes of post-apocalyptica and a roboticized workforce with a uniquely Korean touch.

also- I wouldn’t tie this movie as closely to Blade Runner as others have. The antagonist cyborg in BR was deliberately intended to evoke our empathy- he’s more of a misled child with an impossible dream than a villan. Cypher/the Doctor in Natural City is just a cliche powermad bio scientist who wants to play god and master his own mortality. That contrast made the movies very different for me.

Sure there’s Ria, but honestly I found her character (except from her relationship with R) boring, incomplete, and ignorable.

Great site, by the way…first-time poster, long-time reader…yadda yadda.

Yeah, just imported this one. I’d seen it a few years back when it was first out, bootlegged - of course. And, well…I did indeed love the first half of the movie. It just seemed to run out of steam by the end of it, and I’m generally very accepting of the somewhat plodding pace Korean cinema can deliver at times. But what great opening credits, regardless of GITS influences.

It seemed to me the incidental effects stopped happening after the first hour, such as the initial high-shot of the virtual scenery bench in the plaza, with that excellent overlay of the grid-worked light shimmering across the floor…great little visual treats that are, essentially, part of the background. They are what make a cyberpunk film credible in my eyes. The venerable BR had that in spades, and thus created a totally credible world.

I wanted to love this one, I really did…but, it turned into a cheap action flick by the end and didn’t know when to pull the plug.

By the way, does Children Of Men fall into the category of CP, at least in some small way?

Hi, I just watched Natural City.

Great visuals, but …

I still don’t know what the movie is about. A friend of me told me that the copy that I bought of Natural City, was not a complete movie, and that there were some chapters left out. Anyhow, it was a bit difficult to understand the movie.

Why Ria commits suicide just after realizing the flower will live? She realizes Doma asked for R’s help (when the monitor swithces off we see Ria reflected on the screen: it’s a choice). So maybe, as Roy Batty loved more the life the more he was near death, she dedided not to create problems to R. I don’t think she needs to be remembered, I think she knows she is an old lady to be managed all the time and, after creating a new life (the flower) she can happily stop creating problems.
Also, lot of lonely people there. I think Cyon understood to respect his father’s will when she saw that Ria died alone with a flower. Like his father. In my view the movie heartfully explores the cyborgs but indicates that a human with a cyborg is still a lonely human. That’s a big jump since Blade Runner!

My take on natural city is that the makers wanted to make a sci-fi movie and decided that a good place to start was to look at Blade Runner and then try and copy some of the elements. It is like when a company first tries to get into car manufacturing, they get a model from an established manufacturer and try and copy it. Unfortunately the first attempt is never entirely successful and it takes several iterations before they get it right. That is exactly what happened with this movie.

I have to give Natural City a poor rating overall.

The people responsible for the visuals and style of the movie did a great job. The acting wasn’t bad, but the whole movie was let down by a terrible script. God that script sucks so bad. Also some aspects of the movie crossed over from being a homage to blade runner to being a shameless rip-off.

One thing I really didn’t like was
- The main character R. He was a complete jerk and entirely unlikeable. Right from the start of the movie a large number of his comrades died because of his selfish behavior ie not shooting the cyborgs in the head so he could steal the AI chips to sell on the black market. Also it is unbelievable that he could remain on the squad and keep getting second chances after his actions caused so many casualties among his comrades. So not only is the main character a jerk, his superiors are unbelievably stupid. I think it should be a rule in script writing 101 - do not make you main character a dishonest, unlikeable moron.
- The attachment he has to the cyborg Ria seems very contrived, she doesn’t seem to demonstrate many characteristics that would make him do all the things he does to try and save her. True she is hot, but she is a cyborg right? Just get another hot model ! Also if the AI chips are recyclable (demonstrated by him stealing them from dead cyborgs and selling them on the black-market), just get a new cyborg chassis of the same model, and put the Ria AI chip in it !

I could go on about the holes in the script, but suffice to say the main character seems to spend most of his time acting like an idiot, getting his colleagues killed, and chasing around after street girl cyon so he can steal her body to transplant the Ria personality into it!

So in summary great visuals, but let down by lacklustre script. Also drags on on and is somewhat bloody and unpleasant in parts. I give this movie around 3/10. No way this is even half the movie blade-runner is. Also a B-movie with similar themes is Cherry 2000, which is infinitely more entertaining ! I agree with most of the reviews on this site, but Natural City is a dud !

I had a strange feeling with this movie, mainly because its singular narrative, that as you said, it seems to be typical of a korean drama. But was not really a bad feeling, it was like I´ve been a little stunned.

One of the many aspects that have impressed me is the way that we can see how really R is in-love with Rea. That means, of course, serious implications about love that can be “philosophically” discussed, but even more interesting I think it is the question about if that is just possible (I mean, if THAT kind of relationships is part of the human future or not). In effect, I think it is, and also that have some connexions with tue virtual reality issue.

I would see the movie again… precisely I came to this review wondering if you had seen this movie, and in that case what do you think about it. I´m glad knowing you like it.

I’m afraid I have to agree with Tony_from_New_Zealand.
I got this film after reading the review here and I was quite disappointed. The only part I barely enjoyed was the end of the film, after sealing the medical center.
I would not give it a 3 though, but never a 9! 5, or 6 maybe. It’s hard to believe that this film has been rated higher than some films in the 8 stars category, or even lower. But then, I reckon SFAM and me do not always share points of view or tastes (ie: The 13th Floor, another disappointment).

I like reading SFAM reviews and opinions, nevertheless. Great site =)

Finally saw this for the first time last night. I have such mixed feelings about it. The visuals are nothing short of hypnotic and brilliant. The acting was as good as anything you’ll see from anywhere on the planet. However, I did get distracted by 2 things. 1) The not-so-subtle Blade Runner inspired world. This could almost be billed as Blade Runner 2: Deckard’s Next Case. However, they did it justice and by the end I was no longer comparing every shot with it’s Ridley Scott parallel. 2) The linear story others have mentioned. This would’ve been one of the best sci-fi movies ever had the story been a little more nuanced and “novel like”. It felt like a beautifully filmed and wonderfully acted action movie.. and maybe that’s what it was. I would still agree with the 9/10 rating based on visuals and the linear story they did tell was pretty good with at least 1 decent twist.

just watched natural city.
i too have somewhat mixed feelings about it… it starts out pretty exciting with breathtaking visuals setting the stage for an amazing movie to come. The opening action segments form a kind of fast intense pace…
then it goes downhill.
the story just doesnt flow very well imo with the action segments being too random to keep it interesting. I do put this movie in a high place in my heart just for it being a modernized attempt and having amazing visual aesthetics… but overall i think blade runner was a timeless movie and this is pale in comparison.

definitely worth watching… and experiencing tho.

I can’t watch a movie with great visuals and read subtitles at the same time. That’s the only reason I can’t enjoy this film.

I still have it on dvd and I’ll give it many chances until I memorize one or the other.

i agree.. this movie is not really cyberPUNK. it´s more like a low budged sci-fi love story with loads of boring moments.

Its not soo boring… I liked this movie

Netflix has this movie available to stream on demand. Loved it. Pacing is good. Character development could have used a slight tweak. Another couple of lines of dialogue in the beginning could have better established the friendship between R and his boss. Other than that I found this movie to be great.

Or maybe I just found this movie more enjoyable because I just got done watching Paranoia 1.0. I’ll have to watch it again.

From what I remember of this film, it had great visuals catastrophically marred by silly excuses for martial arts scenes which dragged the story and themes of the film away, kicking and screaming.