Just as Pulp Fiction triggered a wave of inferior gangster flicks with a penchant for witty, fast-paced dialogue and Get Out paved the way for several socially conscious horror efforts, the seeds of Parasite’s widespread influence are beginning to sprout. The disaster movie Concrete Utopia would have still existed were it not for the unprecedented international success of Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar winner, of course, but I doubt producers would have been as eager to give blockbuster funding to a similarly class-conscious satire (which just happens to unfold under near-apocalyptic circumstances) if they didn’t sense similar breakout potential.
It’s not necessarily a criticism that the third film by director Um Tae-hwa follows closely in Bong’s footsteps, marrying his love for the country’s early wave of issue-driven melodramas––as was the case with Parasite, the influence of Kim Ki-young’s The Housemaid looms large––with contemporary big-budget spectacle.
It’s not necessarily a criticism that the third film by director Um Tae-hwa follows closely in Bong’s footsteps, marrying his love for the country’s early wave of issue-driven melodramas––as was the case with Parasite, the influence of Kim Ki-young’s The Housemaid looms large––with contemporary big-budget spectacle.
- 12/5/2023
- by Alistair Ryder
- The Film Stage
In Cormac McCarthy’s 2022 novel The Passenger, a character muses that, when a nuclear bomb set the sky above Hiroshima on fire, those who survived the blast didn’t immediately connect what had happened to the war, but rather assumed that the world had ended. The destruction we see in Um Tae-hwa’s Concrete Utopia feels similarly apocalyptic: When an earthquake rips through the heart of Seoul, the streets split open and buildings crumble, largely reducing the entire city to rubble in a matter of seconds. From this moment on, we never find out what’s happening outside of the city, with the film effectively keying us to the perspectives of a community of survivors for whom the world is essentially their immediate vicinity.
In the midst of all this destruction, Imperial Palace Apartments is the only building in Seoul left standing. To help them survive their grim new reality,...
In the midst of all this destruction, Imperial Palace Apartments is the only building in Seoul left standing. To help them survive their grim new reality,...
- 12/3/2023
- by Ross McIndoe
- Slant Magazine
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