Natural City
Natural City
| 05 September 2003 (USA)
Natural City Trailers

Two cops, R and Noma, hunt down renegade cyborgs. Cyborgs are used as commandos by the military, as lust objects and for companionship. Normaly they have a limited lifespan of three years but black market technology is being developed to be able to transfer a cyborg's artificial intelligence into human host. This drives R to find a suitable host for his expiring cyborg Ria.

Reviews
Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever
Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional
FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.
Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
Ian This is an interesting movie and will appeal to Philip K Dick and Blade Runner fans. Possibly. Out of curiosity, if nothing more.It's sort of based more on Blade Runner than the book on which that was based - Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - and it's more a follow-on than a retelling. Cyborgs (Replicants), Blade Runners (MPs), limited life spans and attempts to counteract it. You get the idea.Fans will be thinking Great! But it's nowhere near the same calibre as Blade Runner. It's confusing, poorly-paced and substitutes action sequences for moments of tension.One highlight - which is probably not much of a highlight, really but which I enjoyed - is the music at 1:30 which just shouts Ennio Morricone. It fits the scene beautifully.The movie has much to recommend it it but ultimately falls short as a "Blade Runner" or "Sheep" adaptation or follow-on. However, fans of either owe it to themselves to watch it and make up their own minds.Just beware of the OTT reviews written by viewers who have little or no knowledge of its sources, or who still (can you believe it?) think gloss, sparks and action is all you need.
Vincent This is a mindless action flick dressed up as sci-fi.It has some themes in common with common but lacks any of the intelligence or depth.The pace is slow, very little happens for most of the film, flashes of action and violence but very formulaic and dull.The characters are 2 dimensional, as you'd expect from an action flick.The plot doesn't hang together very well and the clichés pile up continuously.The ending is poor; we have the annoying cliché of the super villains, who earlier were so good one of them could slaughter a troop of soldiers without getting a bruise, suddenly turning into cannon fodder for the hero with all their speed and skill vanishing because now he is serious and angry! Some of the visuals are good but nothing original or spectacular.This is pure paint-by-number, no vision or imagination, not terrible but never approaching good.I was expecting something better, worth a glance if it's on TV and there is nothing else but not worth paying any money to watch.
unbrokenmetal I read through the reviews here before I watched it and didn't know what to expect: a classic or a bummer? In my view, the truth is in the middle and the average vote of currently 5.8 seems justified. "Natural City" is by no means a movie on the "Blade Runner" level. Take away the futuristic eye-candy, and what is left? A man is in love with a cyborg lady without really telling us why, how or what for. Real character development is not happening! He gets in a conflict with his friend over the cyborgs which leads to gratuitous violence with faces covered in blood like in a million action flicks before. Meanwhile, a girl plants flowers in a roof garden to provide a contrast to the post-war destruction scenery around. "Natural City" doesn't really have any new ideas, it simply spices up the collection of familiar trade marks with "Matrix/Equilibrium Next Generation" visuals which is fine for web 2.0 designers but not for the art of film making. Everybody who truly believes this is going to be a classic should go watch "Soylent Green" where it was the actors and the story that mattered. Still, "Natural City" is a movie that has its touching or stunning moments. Actually, I liked that explanations were not provided in many cases. One might argue whether it is a deliberate attempt to open it for interpretation or simply plot holes. But I think, if we once really caught a glimpse of the year 2080, there would be much that we won't comprehend, either. You know how silly SF movies of the 1950s seem today because they applied manners, moral standards and ways of conversation that are outdated. In this respect, I'm curious what people will think of "Natural City" in the future. Keep it in the archive.
Captain Spandex Natural City is one of several recent Korean movies (such as 2046) from a new school of film-making in Asia. And unfortunately, after watching, digesting, and allowing this film to sink in, I can only reach the inescapable conclusion that this 'new school' consists of former music video directors who have watched Blade Runner far too many times. The discerning film-goer will even notice some exact shots are actually lifted in this movie from Ridley Scott's neo-noir masterpiece. This film - perhaps even more than the source material that it clearly owes its entire existence to - relies far too much on slick, but ultimately hollow and meaningless, cinematography.Its story slows to a crawl, and patches together pointless scenes such as R's bar fight to keep what semblance of kinetic energy it promised on the film's back cover going. Ridiculous logistical scenes are turned into ethereal mini-music videos with no point and no underlying symbolism. It's as if the director is desperately trying to emulate the emotional power of scenes in Blade Runner by using that film's same tricks - slow motion, sappy music, and rain. Unfortunately, Natural City never hits anywhere near the mark it sets for itself, and the director seems genuinely clueless as to what his movie's actual symbolic meaning is. The result is a muddled atrocity of a story that moves like frozen chocolate pudding and has to resort to a big gunfight and cliché 'self-destruct countdown' sequence as its climax to make up for its own glaring shortcomings.The good things about this movie? The lead actor, playing the part of R, is actually quite good at attracting empathy. Visually, there are a few interesting bits. The death of one of the film's main characters is a touching but hollow scene, which perhaps unintentionally works in its favor. Some of the atmosphere is very depressive and moody and really lends to the overall feel, but I don't think any single scene really steps out and defines this film visually. There is a very generic sci-fi feel to certain things (such as the M.P.'s, and the gunfight at the beginning of the film).I should make very clear that while this film is clearly derivative of Blade Runner, it is nowhere near the feast for the eyes that the former is, and it also fails miserably at putting its own unique visual spin on the future. And as a simple aside, to those who suggest that it is unfair to compare the two films - Natural City itself draws the comparisons, actively inciting them on its front cover. That is this movie's gimmick, and ultimately, its failing.