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Polished disaster drama
- Concrete Utopia is a polished disaster drama with a bleak and brutal view of human nature.
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Dec 15, 2023 · Concrete Utopia: Directed by Tae-hwa Eom. With Lee Byung-hun, Park Seo-joon, Park Bo-young, Kim Sun-young. Survivors from a massive earthquake struggle for a new life in Seoul.
- (6.5K)
- Action, Adventure, Drama
- Tae-hwa Eom
- 2023-12-15
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Concrete Utopia (Korean: 콘크리트 유토피아) is a 2023 South Korean disaster-thriller film directed by Um Tae-hwa, who wrote the screenplay with Lee Shin-ji, based on the second part of the webtoon Pleasant Outcast by Kim Soongnyung.
Nov 12, 2023 · But “Concrete Utopia” is a dystopian disaster movie with a difference. This year’s South Korean entry in the Oscar competition for best international feature, it places its characters in a...
- A polished disaster drama with a bleak and brutal view of human nature
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- Verdict
By Katie Rife
Updated: Dec 8, 2023 8:21 pm
Posted: Dec 8, 2023 8:08 pm
Set in the last remaining apartment block in Seoul after an apocalyptic earthquake ravages the city, South Korea’s official Oscar entry for 2023 uses a single high-rise building – the “concrete utopia” of the title – as a stand-in for nothing less than all of human society. In director and co-writer Um Tae-hwa’s cynical view, people are selfish, violent creatures that are prone to cruelty when we feel even the slightest bit threatened. Put another way: Concrete Utopia is Lord of the Flies with a view.
In snappy, quick-cutting vignettes that map out the system that keeps the Imperial Palace running – if not necessarily a sense of geography in this claustrophobic space – Concrete Utopia builds a functional, immersive world. Every day, Yeong-tak and his men venture out into the rubble of the city searching for food and fuel, which is rationed out and distributed by a committee. Similar groups handle medicine, waste disposal, and even recreation for residents – and only residents. Outside the walls lie piles of frozen corpses, but the people living in the Imperial Palace have convinced themselves that they’ve been “chosen” to survive.
At its best, Concrete Utopia prompts the viewer to ask themselves what they’d do if they were given choices like the ones the characters must make. Some of its observations have a touch of black humor to them: One scene sees a gaggle of well-fed aunties chiding a starving refugee for her tone. At its worst, it’s just obvious, like the shot of a “Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself” sign on the wall of an apartment whose residents are being beaten for harboring “outsiders.”
Concrete Utopia is a disaster movie about human nature. Set in the last apartment block standing in Seoul after a devastating earthquake, this polished, character-driven drama is a whole lot of movie, in both good and bad ways.
- Katie Rife
Sep 27, 2023 · Concrete Utopia, a South Korean disaster movie, has some of that, but really focuses more on what comes in the immediate aftermath. First, the film grabs your attention with a massive...
- Germain Lussier
Sep 26, 2023 · Concrete Utopia, South Korea's 2024 Oscar entry, is a compelling and gripping human drama about immigration and economic disparity. Read our review here.
Dec 7, 2023 · South Korea’s submission for Best International Feature Oscar follows the residents of a building who were spared in a freak disaster—only to create their own insular nightmare.
