Festival Trailer for Korean Earthquake Survival Movie ‘Concrete Utopia’

Festival Trailer for Korean Earthquake Survival Movie ‘Concrete Utopia’

by Alex Billington
September 13, 2023
Source: YouTube

“Our apartments belong to the residents!” A festival promo trailer is available for a Korean disaster movie called Concrete Utopia. It’s currently playing at the 2023 Toronto Film Festival, after opening in Korea in August. Here’s the pitch: residents of a concrete apartment complex are surprised to discover their building is the only one standing after a massive earthquake decimates Seoul. While no one knows for sure how far the ruins stretch, or what the cause of the earthquake may be, in the heart of Seoul there’s only one building left standing. It is called Hwang Gung Apartments. As time passes, outsiders start coming in to escape the extreme cold. Before long, the apartment residents are unable to cope with the increasing numbers. Feeling a threat to their very survival, the residents enact a special measure. Starring Lee Byung-hun, Park Bo-young, and Park Seo-jun. Another intense survival movie that actually seems more & more like real life, with earthquakes hitting more often all over the planet. This looks like a properly unsettling disaster movie.

Here’s the official trailer (+ two posters) for Eom Tae-hwa’s Concrete Utopia, direct from YouTube:

Via TIFF: “From their balcony at the Hwang Gung apartment complex, Min-seong (Parasite’s Park Seo-jun) and Myeong-hwa (Park Bo-young) look out on nothing but corpses and rubble. It seems a miracle their building remains standing when all the others are destroyed. A stranger and her small child soon arrive at Min-seong and Myeong-hwa’s door begging to be let in, followed by dozens of others from the surrounding area desperately seeking food and shelter. As days pass and no rescue teams turn up, the tenants assemble, survey their limited resources, vote to evict the ‘outsiders.’ When Yeong-tak (I Saw the Devil’s Lee Byung-hun), the tenants’ elected leader, announces that the outsiders must leave [the apartments], all hell breaks loose. From this point on, the tenants must be prepared to protect their property by any means necessary…”

Concrete Utopia, also known as 콘크리트 유토피아 in Korean, is directed by the Korean filmmaker Tae-hwa Eom, director of the films Ing-too-gi and Vanishing Time: A Boy Who Returned previously. The screenplay is written by Tae-hwa Eom and Lee Shin-ji. Produced by Byun Seung-min. The film already opened in Korea in August this year, as well as most of Asia, and it’s also playing at the Toronto Film Festival this month. No US release date has been set yet – stay tuned for updates. Who’s interested in watching this? Looking good?

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