Fabricated City is a 2017 Korean film staring Ji Chang Wook, Shin Eun Kyung, and, Ahn Jae Hong. the film was directed by Park Kwang Hyun and written by him as well. Many tickets were sold for the film in it's first week making the overall ticket sales surpass a million tickets sold. This caused the film to win most popular award at the 2017's Korean film awards.
A young gamer is falsely charged for the murder and rape of a girl that he didn't even know. He was then sentenced to jail time. Now he must find a way to clear his name with the help of other fellow gamers that he befriended online.
The plot of Fabricated City was terrible disjoined. It will seem more so disjointed to people who read the plot summery before watching the film. I read the plot and it made me think the the film was going to deal a lot with virtual reality. Posters for the film give you that impression too until you see the actual film. The first few scenes of the film do just that too. These momentary sequences of acting draw the viewer in to set them up for a down fall of disappointment. Gosh, Everything in these opening scenes are so damn flashy. Great action cinematography on top of intense action that leaves you expecting more later in the film. After these scenes, viewers are brought to a normal downsized version of the plot. Writers pretty much use the same old over used Korean cinema conflicts to move the plot along. Looking at what was shown gives off the vibe of a couple of other films. Most notably, The Prison(See My Post.) because of the heart stopping brutality that the main character faced in Jail. While Fabricated City gives a more raw realistic portrayal than The Prison, the latter still feels like it covered all the ground that needed to be covered on Prison life in South Korea. The plot never recovers from the mishap of pretending to be something that it wasn't in the beginning. You literally wait for the plot to utilize the introduction of virtual reality seen in the beginning of the film. It never comes though sadly. Things only go from the potential of being unique to being like all the other Korean crime thrillers. I'll give props to the visuals which I'll discuss more later but what was used as a little taste of the futuristic appeal that I was expecting, wasn't enough to connect the beginning, middle, and end of the film for me.
The acting was the same old same old. None had me really excited by their performances. All the actors were just so so for me. I'm wracking my brain right now for any acting performances that made an impression on me and I can't think of anything. The lead actor was handsome…. That's about it. I also want to give a shout out to the black man and woman that has a small part in the film. The way they were represented made me kinda of happy. Their acting felt much more real than a lot of the other foreigner actors who come across as robotic in Korean movies. Some foreign actors get on camera delivering their lines like they reading off a damn sign behind the camera. The director made sure to show a true to life portrayal of one side of what a black person's experience could be living in South Korea(especially if you're living in the country side.).
Fabricated City is defiantly pretty to look at. The special effects are on point in the film. They go well with the disfunction of the plot mostly. Special effects are done so well that you forget for a few minutes how the plot doesn't flow. Then the special effects end and you're left with the reality that the scriptwriter held out on a conjoint story for flashy visuals. They are on part with the effects in Hollywood films actually. I've noticed that Korean filmmakers are leveling up each year on their digital effects game. Soon Hollywood might start getting scared of the big SK![INSERT ME LAUGHING.] I really loved the effects since they put in mind of The Matrix a little bit.
This film is a flashy piece of fluff. I'm not going to lie to you. Best part about this film is the visuals. What's really sad is that Fabricated City would have been a solid film had the scriptwriter taken the time to just had the plot send the characters back into virtual reality again for a conflict builder.
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