[The Second Take] The Possibility of Being Chosen as a Resident of Hwanggung Apartment

'Concrete Utopia': Social and Personal Divisions
A Society Still Entrenched in Militarism
Deepening Prejudice Amid Discrimination and Lack of Human Rights Awareness

"Those who are not residents of Hwanggung Apartment, please leave the complex." In the movie 'Concrete Utopia,' the residents of Hwanggung Apartment exclude outsiders. The emergence of collective selfishness is a sign that the society has become somewhat differentiated. Hwanggung Apartment is the only place safe amid the disaster where concrete buildings collapse helplessly. Before the sudden calamity, it was old and neglected, looked down upon, but its status was elevated in an instant.

The residents unite in an orderly manner under the pretext of security. At the center is Kim Young-tak (played by Lee Byung-hun). He is an outsider who practices authoritarianism due to the banality of evil. Before the disaster, he committed murder in Hwanggung Apartment. No resident suspects him. On the contrary, they only see him resolving the fire and eagerly embrace him. "You live on the 9th floor. I live on the 9th floor too. We took the elevator together last time." "Kim Geum-ae vouches for his identity."

The apartment is a socially divided space on a personal level. It reflects the changes in modern Korean society, in other words, the increase of nuclear families and the separation of labor and residential spaces. However, surveillance and control are carried out by all individuals belonging to the community space. This implies a specific tendency of modern urban society where such practices have become normalized.

Director Eom Tae-hwa concretizes this through the male residents united under Kim Young-tak’s leadership. When the exclusion of outsiders is decided by majority vote, everyone, without exception, takes up clubs and sets up barriers. The rapid cohesion is based on military experience. Even after discharge, they quickly unite because they worked as conscripted soldiers of a salaried corporate army. This aligns with the view of Bruce Cumings, the distinguished professor at the University of Chicago: "Although there were no battles after the Korean War, the Korean military established an industrial discipline school for 30 years. The discipline dominating Korean corporate culture is a result of militarism."

Director Eom shows that contemporary Korean society has not significantly escaped the militarism that propelled economic development. This is closely related to the history of apartments. Until the early 1970s, the image of apartment complexes was not good. The background to their rapid transformation into urban middle-class homes was authoritarianism. To manage population growth and induce the dedication of salaried workers, apartments with controlled prices were supplied en masse. The middle class was gathered into large apartment complexes and given benefits such as home ownership and increased asset income to gain political support.

Val?rie Julliard, professor at the French School of Social Sciences, explained in her book 'Apartment Republic' as follows: "Due to the structure of mutual benefits, Korea’s urban middle class and the general middle class could spatially separate themselves from the lower social strata centered around apartment complexes. In short, Korea’s apartment complexes are the best examples and products of the structure and characteristics of authoritarian industrialization, the hierarchical discriminatory structure derived from it, and the homogenized cultural patterns."

Perhaps that is why the exclusion of outsiders by Hwanggung Apartment residents is not so surprising. Even now, it is common to ignore or insult opinions simply because they go against group sentiment. Extreme prejudice deepens amid discrimination against others and a lack of understanding of human rights. Even though the possibility of being chosen as a resident of Hwanggung Apartment is slim...

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