''Natural City'' () is a 2003 South Korean

science fiction film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstel ...

, set in a

dystopian A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

Natural City Review
variety.com (October 16, 2003). Retrieved on August 28, 2020. future, about a colony world that integrates

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be ...

androids An android is a humanoid robot or other artificial being often made from a flesh-like material. Historically, androids were completely within the domain of science fiction and frequently seen in film and television, but advances in robot techno ...

and

cyborgs A cyborg ()—a portmanteau of ''cybernetic'' and ''organism''—is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.

amongst the population.

Plot

Two police officers, R and Noma, hunt down renegade cyborgs. The cyborgs serve a number of duties, ranging from military commandos to "dolls", engineered for

companionship The concept of interpersonal relationship involves social associations, connections, or affiliations between two or more people. Interpersonal relationships vary in their degree of intimacy or self-disclosure, but also in their duration, in t ...

. They have a limited 3-year lifespan, although

black market A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the ...

technology has been developed to transfer a cyborg's

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech ...

into the brain of a human host. This breakthrough compels R into finding Cyon, an orphaned prostitute, who may serve as the host for the mind of his doll Ria. He has fallen deeply in love with his doll and she has only a few days left to live. Eventually, R must make a decision between leaving the colony with Ria to spend her last days with him on a paradise-like planet or save his friends when a renegade combat cyborg takes over the police headquarters.

Cast

Yoo Ji-tae Yoo Ji-tae (born April 13, 1976) is a South Korean actor, film director and screenwriter. After a stint as a fashion model, Yoo launched his acting career in 1998 then rose to fame through the films '' Attack the Gas Station'' (1999) and '' Ditt ...

as R * Lee Jae-eun as Cyon * Seo Lin as Ria *

Jung Eun-pyo Jung Eun-pyo (born March 27, 1966) is a South Korean actor. He is active in both stage and screen since 1990, notably in the film ''Kilimanjaro'' (for which he won Best Supporting Actor at the Grand Bell Awards) and the television dramas ''Moon ...

as Croy * Yoon Chan as Noma *

Jung Doo-hong Jung Doo-hong (born December 14, 1966) is a South Korean action director, martial arts choreographer, stunt coordinator, and actor. Early life Jung Doo-hong was born in 1966 in Chilsan-ri, Imcheon-myeon, Buyeo County, South Chungcheong Provin ...

as Cypher * Ko Ju-hye as Ami

Reception

The film received mixed to positive reviews.

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

gave at the film 67% positive reviews.

References

External links

* *
''Natural City''
at HanCinema * 2003 science fiction action films 2003 films Dystopian films 2000s dystopian films 2000s Korean-language films Mad scientist films South Korean post-apocalyptic films Robot films South Korean science fiction action films Films set in the future Films about artificial intelligence Cyborg films Android (robot) films Films set in 2080 Cyberpunk films 2000s South Korean films {{2000s-sf-film-stub