Natural City (DVD)

Natural City is a bit of a disappointment. The surging Korean cinema has been on a roll for the last few years and here we have their most promising and biggest venture into sci-fi. Unfortunately, the film doesn't hold up and while the visuals are pretty for a moderately budgeted flick and the acting heartfelt and strong, the film's plotting gets lost in convoluted writer diarrhea.

So what's it about? R is a military officer whose job is to hunt down rebel cyborgs. But wouldn't you know it, all this time R has been in love with a cyborg named Ria. The problem with spraying your love juice into a cyborg isn't just that you risk an electrocuted appendage, but that cyborgs come with an expiration date and Ria's time is up in 3 days. Her pending death has R in emotional turmoil and how far he is willing to go to save her is enough to make most viewers distance themselves emotionally from his plight. I don't mind that the story pushes R in this dark direction, but I do mind how nonchalant other characters ingest this piece of behavior (which I won't spoil here but I will say hiking up and down flights of steps, as R must do here, isn't exactly the strictest of penalties all things considered).

Meanwhile, his commander and once-friend, Noma, is trying to track down a lethal fugitive cyborg that has some evil scheme up his sleeve that is neither engaging nor needed. And I haven't even mentioned Jae Eun Lee as Cyon whose place in the film's story is key, but never really achieves the emotional payoff writer-director Byung-Cheon Min seems to have been after.

As you can probably tell, at its core, Natural City is Blade Runner with more crew-cuts and A.I. with less Haley Joel Osment (and Chris Rock). But where those two films worked so well because they were so simple and emotionally balanced, City crumbles as it struggles to make us care. The thing is the film works for the first 45 some odd minutes. The film's first act really flows. There are only 3 or 4 action scenes in the film but they are all solid, particularly the opening shootout sequence in knee-high water which almost puts the Wachowski Brothers' water droplet fetish to shame (I said almost). Visually, it's a beautiful film and as I mentioned, the acting is strong. Ji Tae Yoo, so good as the diabolical baddie in Oldboy, is effective as the film's lead, R, and Chan Yoon gives perhaps the best performance in the film as commanding officer Noma. Rin Seo is a great mixture of beauty and sadness as Ria and Jae Eun Lee has a great performance in her somewhere as Cyon but her character never breaks out the way it should and is instead used as background metaphor, foreground plot pawn.

Now normally I forgive Asian cinema for the inevitably cheesy melodrama at the film's climax but Natural City had me leapfrogging over too much sloppy filmmaking that I was in the "should I shut this off already and fake my review stage." Did I give in? Well, I probably would not be sounding so bitter if I had.

This Tartan Asia Extreme release isn't a complete misfire. The film almost works and fans of Korean cinema or sci-fi will find enough interesting things visually and thematically to revisit it. The DVD has three good interviews with Ji tae Yoo, Chan Yoon and Rin Seo where they discuss their characters and give more tidbits on process of making the movie. There are also about 4 or 5 deleted scenes, one involving Rin Seo and Jae Eun Lee's characters that should have been in the film. Also on the DVD is a pretty decent making-of doc called "The Story of Natural City" and watching it I felt a bit guilty because it is obvious not only how hard everyone worked on the film but how much hope they had it would be the film that opened up the Korean film industry to more bold and legitimate sci-fi films. At one point in the documentary, though proud at what he was able to achieve, writer-director Min expresses that he is sorry he didn't make a better movie. Better luck next time.