A renegade cop who is selling illegal AI chips on the black market to fund his obsession with an android dancer goes head to head with a terrorist trying to use the technology for his own nefarious ends. Blade Runner goes manga in this Korean sci-fi which takes the basic story of Scott's masterpiece and throws in a load of Matrix-style action sequences and Asian techno-babble, pretty much ruining everything about the idea that made it good. The biggest problem with the film though is the weak characterisation which makes it very difficult to care about anyone involved. The protagonist comes across as a corrupt, obsessive drunken asshole rather than complex anti-hero, and his robotic lap dancer who acts like a zombie with Parkinson's just doesn't work as romance because we never really see how it blossomed. The same is true of the friendship between he and his partner, making his redemption at the end meaningless. It does have a few stylish action sequences and the production design is very nice but the plot doesn't really hang together, and without characters you can root for it all seems a bit pointless.

It's Blade Runner alright but not as we know it. Taking on similar themes and a similar plot Natural City struggles to find its voice. It does accomplish this however through the simply breathtaking visuals on display, from the sets to the CGI and even the costumes. The film is so proud of its grandeur that during the closing credits a series of pre-production sketches are shown. The action scenes are also not to be sniffed at, creating a genuine thrilling experience. It does however collapse under its own weight, with the plot being stretched to 2 hours where 100 minutes would have sufficed.