Concrete Utopia Review: A Gripping Korean Disaster Movie [Fantastic Fest 2023] – /Film

Things start taking a turn for the worse when Kim Young-Tak (Lee Byung-Hun) is elected delegate for the complex and decides to establish a policy that banishes every non-resident — essentially sentencing them to freeze to death. What follows is dog-eat-dog chaos. 

Cinematographer Cho Hyoung-rae shoots the film with an eye for contrasts, order versus chaos, the warm colors of the inside of the apartments against the cold ash-grey colors of a ruined city. Everything outside the safety of the complex is cold, unforgiving, and muted, from the jackets to the corpses. 

The script adapts the webtoon “Pleasant Bullying” by Kim Soongnyung but completely changes the perspective of the source material, which gives the movie a much bigger scope and an avenue to explore themes of inequality and class warfare. Though there are moments when it is clear that this is based on an episodic-format story, the tension never decreases. 

“Concrete Utopia” mostly rests on the shoulders of the cast, with Byung-Hun and Seo-jun in particular stealing the show. The former delivers a layered performance unlike anything he’s done before, mixing humor with menace, relatable desperation with insanity. The latter has a nuanced and compelling arc that sees him radicalized (not without reason) and slowly break apart as he experiences the worst the disaster has to offer. 

“Concrete Utopia” is not subtle about its allegories, particularly when it comes to immigration. Thankfully, the focus on character and the fast pace of the story that moves us from one crisis to the other keep the message from becoming overwhelming. Likewise, the script and visuals tease a larger world with stories just outside of what is on screen, adding to the film’s worldbuilding.

/Film rating: 8 out of 10