Thursday, May 31, 2018

Natural City (2003) is great Korean sci-fi.

I had seen the DVD cover to this but never checked it out, figuring it couldn't possibly be as good as the insane praise on the cover. "A modern Blade Runner" is pretty damn hard to live up to but I have to say I wasn't disappointed. Like a live action Japanese anime, this has gore, futuristic soldiers with guns, cyborgs, fantastic set design, ample rain and smoke, etc. I'm amazed they were able to pull this off. The lead actor is excellent with his conflicted feelings driving the narrative (you'll recognize him as the antagonist from Oldboy). If you're at all curious, I suggest going in spoiler free without reading anything so you should stop here because I'm going to give some crappy semblance of the story. R, our badass main man, used to be one of the best Military Police until he fell in love with a machine whose expiration date keeps inching closer while he tries to get enough cash to save her and avoid his suspicious boss who also happens to be his best friend. If that's not complex enough, another girl enters the picture and there's more to it than that once you find out the truth about the big bad cyborg shooting the place up. Needless to say, it's awesome and you even get some Robocop-esque squibs from time to time. Ok not quite ED-209 boardroom massacre size but definitely nice and bloody. Sure, there's some CGI that could be better but I don't think it's bad and you get some nice practical too. If you like Korean cinema or interesting bloody sci-fi, this is a gem waiting to be discovered.

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