This contains spoilers.

Disaster films bring spectacle and thrills to audiences, but they are also strongly satirical in nature. Especially when a situation becomes extreme, the contradictions that a society has are often exposed.

The 2023 South Korean film "Concrete Utopia," which was released in the summer, is set in a world where Seoul, South Korea's capital, has been completely destroyed by an earthquake. The earthquake caused all the buildings that covered Seoul to collapse like dominoes, leaving only one apartment building, "Hwanggung Apartment," standing.

The residents of the apartment seem to be cooperating to survive the disaster. However, survivors from the ruined Seoul flock to Hwanggung Apartment, the only remaining building. Residents of Hwanggung Apartment look at them with disdain.

Among the refugees who flocked to Hwanggung Apartment were those who lived in "Dream Palace." Dream Palace is an apartment complex located a short distance from Hwanggung Apartment. However, it was much more expensive than Hwanggung Apartment. Dream Palace residents would not let Hwanggung Apartment residents come near them.

Residents of Hwanggung Apartment hold a vote to decide whether to chase these refugees away. Voting rights are given only to the house owners, not to the tenants. Hwanggung Apartment residents vote to expel the refugees, claiming that Dream Palace residents discriminated against them and excluded them.

Refugees do not leave quietly. Kim Young-tak, the representative of the residents, organizes a vigilante group to drive them out. Kim Young-tak later, along with the vigilantes, loots the ruins of Seoul, creating a utopia of their own. Kim Young-tak tracks down those who hid the refugees and punishes them, creating a climate of fear and establishing himself as a dictator of Concrete Utopia.

However, as revealed in the latter part of the film, he was not actually a resident of this apartment. His real name is "Mo Se-beom." He tried to buy the 902nd floor of Hwanggung Apartment, but he was scammed. He gave all his money to "Kim Young-tak," the owner of the 902nd floor, but the money was taken by the scammers who were related to the real Kim Young-tak.

Mo Se-beom had gone to the 902nd floor to get his money back, and he had murdered the real Kim Young-tak there and had been pretending to be Kim Young-tak.

Their utopia soon collapses. With refugees and looters flocking to the apartment from outside and internal division, residents are killed or scattered, and the film ends.

The episodes surrounding the apartment have garnered the sympathy of Koreans and contributed to its box office success. This is because it is common in Korean society for children to be divided and discriminated against based on apartment prices, or for apartments to be used as bait for scams. Especially since apartments are blamed as the cause of numerous social problems in Korean society, this film came as a shock to Koreans.

Meanwhile, "Badland Hunter," a spin-off and sequel to the film, was released on Netflix on January 26th. This film is more of a zombie action film than a social satire. However, if you are curious what happened to Hwanggung Apartment after the film, you may want to watch this one.