Natural City
(KD Media Region 3 DVD)
(1978)
review by Suspiriorium

In the year 2080, men have developed the ability to build complex Cyborgs, which are virtually indistinguishable from humans courtesy of complex AI chips. They also have limited life spans which means they automatically shut down after around 3 years. R (Oldboy’s Ji-tae Yu) is in love with Rai (Rin Seo), a cyborg dancer who is just 3 days away from expiry. He is also an MP, an elite military force who are called in when a group of combat cyborgs led by Cyper (Doo-hong Jung) attack the NEUCOM genetics research centre to steal lists of human DNA structures. Somehow this is connected to Dr Giro (Eun-pyo Jeong), a brilliant cyborg creator, & Cyon (Jae-un Lee) a sexy young prostitute from the slums whose father had also been in love with a cyborg.Ok, before we go any further, yes this is all very much like Blade Runner. Writer/director Byung-Chun Min is clearly a big fan of Ridley Scott’s seminal classic, the shadow of which looms over Natural City. Not just in the obvious things – cyborg-hunter searching for a particularly dangerous one, in love with a cyborg himself, & of course the built-in expiry dates – but also in the constant rain in the slums, the huge ships flying overhead blasting out advertisements, the dishevelled cyborg engineer now living in the slums; I could go on but it would soon get boring. Suffice to say that if you’ve seen Blade Runner (& if you haven’t, shame on you - go find a copy right now) then this will trigger a sense of deja-vue. It’s not hard to imagine that the film was pitched as “Blade Runner, souped-up with some Matrix-esque fight scene”. Which is not to say that Natural City is just a straight rip-off since it actually does go it’s own way with similar ideas & becomes more original in the second half, which I’ve obviously left out of the above synopsis.
The chief reason to see Natural City is for the visuals. This is one cool sleek & sexy film, make no mistake. The production design is simply eye-popping, physical sets & miniatures augmented by well-rendered CG. The elegant lighting by Byung-Chun Min as his own cinematographer - making loving use of colours, combines with the design to create a rare eyeball-massaging treat, which sustains the film through its occasional longeurs & prevents it from ever getting boring. And then there are the fight scenes, action-directed by Doo-hong Jung, which combine martial arts with gunplay & cool slo-mo. Yes, it is a bit Matrix, but without the tiresome camera spinning around a frozen scene gimmick it still feels fresh & exciting. Watching the super-fast & dynamic combat cyborgs spinning through & killing off a unit of MP’s, ripping legs clean off, is simply breathtaking. In fact, the only real complaints of the action scenes are that they tend towards over-editing a touch, & that there simply aren’t enough of them.Which brings me on to the flaws of the film. Like Blade Runner, this isn’t really an action film, but unlike Blade Runner, it does get bogged down between the action. A lot of time is spent on the relationship between R & Ria, & whilst this affords the opportunity for some more beautiful visual moments, their love story fails to resonate as it should. They are already in love by the time we meet them, & with only 3 days left, Ria pretty much just sits around forlornly not really doing much, & R mopes around a bit & lets his work fall apart. We know they’re in love because the script says so, but there’s no real chemistry, it’s hard to know what attracted them to each other in the first place. This negatively impacts the films climax, which tries for an emotional peak that isn’t quite there. Jae-jin Lee contributes a lyrical score, which adds nicely to the quieter moments of the film, but over-reaches itself slightly & borders on the cheesy at the end.Natural City is never boring, & it’s even got a couple of interesting ideas mixed in with its recycled ones, but with slightly vague & not entirely sympathetic characters it’s not quite as gripping or compelling as it should be. Despite its flaws, the cool action scenes & amazing visual style means that it’s worth a look.
I’ve been watching the R/3 NTSC 2-Disc LE Tin from KD Media. The tin is basically just a metal slipcase covering the plastic keepcase. It’s nice-looking, but not particularly special, appropriately enough. The anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer is fine – there is a touch of grain & softness at times, but I suspect this is a creative choice & how the film is intended to look. The Korean DTS 5.1 audio is pretty impressive, very clear with some nice use of the surrounds. For those with more modest systems, Dolby 5.1 & 2.0 variants are also provided, with subtitles in English & Korean.
There’s an impressive selection of extras here, but sadly none of them have English subtitles. Disc 1 contains commentary, biographies, & trailers. Disc 2 is split into 2 sections. The first is “In the Frame”, containing the 24 minute “The Story of Natural City”, a 45 min “Making of”, 4 deleted scenes, some short interviews, & a glossary of keywords used in the film (so if you can read Korean, you can now know what “AI” & “DNA” mean. Woohoo!). “Out of the Frame” is the second section, containing a 20 min location report, “World of Natural City” (looking at the effects), “Making of the Title Logo”, picture galleries & a music video. There’s also “Cannes promo”, essentially an English-language trailer with cheesy voice-over man.Optimum Asia are releasing the film on R2/PAL in the UK, containing anamorphic picture, the “Making of”, “Location Tour”, deleted scenes & trailer. It squeezes all onto on disc, so this is at the expense of losing the dts track. If you can live with Dolby only, the subs on the features should make this a nice alternative release – although I can’t comment on the picture quality!