“I feel like our apartment complex has been chosen,” boasts Kim Young-tak (Lee Byung-hun), a resident of Seoul’s Hwang Gung apartments and one of Concrete Utopia’s complex protagonists. His sense of pride isn’t uncommon, but he and his neighbors have a unique reason to feel so protective over their abode. After an earthquake ravages the South Korean capital, their building is the last one standing for miles. Everything else has been decimated by the disaster: shopping malls, hospitals, and homes are all buried under mountains of debris. So perhaps Hwang Gung has been chosen. Whether it be by a freak twist of fate or the ironic musings of a higher power is not a question many of the residents try to unpack. As long as Young-tak says it, most will believe it. He is, after all, the cult-like figure elected to guide Hwang Gung through this fresh apocalypse.
