Colony is a location or a territory wherein organisms live closely together. In nature, insects like bees, ants, and termites operate as a colony. What this means is that these critters solve problems by communicating, coordinating, and making decisions as a group through a collective intelligence.
Why is that important? Well, that is the key idea behind scientist Seo Young-chul’s (Koo Kyo-hwan) bioweapon. He wants to turn people into rabid zombies capable of developing and exchanging information with one another through a hive mind. And the perfect venue to launch a bio-terrorist attack seems to be the Dongwoo-ri Building where many scientists, investors, and professors are attending a presentation by the IT company, Chains Bio.
Among this group of attendees is professor Kwon Se-jeong (Jun Ji-hyun), who is accompanied by her ex-husband Han Gyu-sung (Go Soo). Se-jeong is unemployed, so she’s looking for a job at Chains Bio. Apart from the job hunting, she also received an invitation to the event with a weird note written on it and she’s itching to ask CEO Kang Woo-chul (Kim Jong-Tae) about it.
After the event, Se-jeong decided to go to Woo-chul’s office to talk to him. But upon seeing a mysterious figure enter the room, Se-jeong turned around. That turns out to be a smart decision because, unbeknownst to her, the mysterious figure was Young-chul and he injected Woo-chul with a virus to begin the spread of the infection.
Meanwhile, a security guard named Choi Hyun-seok (Ji Chang-wook) accompanies his mobility-impaired older sister, Hyun-hee (Kim Shin-rok), at the shopping mall inside the building. As they part ways, Hyun-seok gets a message ordering them to enact a lockdown. It is not long until he realizes why the order feels urgent and pressing because outside the halls, mindless human creatures started pounding on everyone in their path.
Se-jeong, Hyun-seok, Hyun-hee, Gyu-sung, along with others, found themselves trapped in one of the stores during the commotion and as they watch the outside bloodfest in horror, they realized that they were completely trapped inside the building with the infected, cut off from escape, helpless, and facing an outbreak where the zombies were adapting, getting smarter, and making escape nearly impossible.
I always thought Colony was a prequel to Train to Busan, but after scouring the internet for answers, it officially is not. One could think there is a connection, though, because there are a lot of similarities between the two, such as the feral zombies, the claustrophobic setting, and the subtle critique on social class and standing. It is also directed by the same director, Yeon Sang-ho.
Whether there is a Train to Busan connection or not, Colony is a fairly good zombie movie by itself. It brings fresh ideas to the table on how to innovate, refresh, and move the genre forward with the introduction of the hive mind, all the while delivering on the action, tension, and horror inherent in movies about flesh-eating, fast-moving, mindless humans.
Adding to all of this, front and center of the film are three of the most reliable actors in South Korea today: Jun Ji-hyun, Koo Kyo-hwan, and Ji Chang-wook.
I find it kind of odd that Jun Ji-hyun headlines this film, because Kingdom fans will know that she already starred in a similar project: Ashin of the North. What makes it amusing is that she is basically playing the same character in both: a strong and capable woman with extensive knowledge about the outbreak who might be the answer to everything. It also seems like her favorite projects to return to, after a hiatus from film and television, are ones in the zombie genre.
Nevertheless, Jun Ji-hyun is a really good actress. She is good in her other films, and she is good in this one too. For someone once considered a rom-com queen in South Korea, she has been able to rebrand herself as the go-to heroine in horror-action films. That is a very noteworthy evolution and progression of her career, and it proves that she is one of the rare actresses whose career gets more interesting with age.
As for Koo Kyo-hwan and Ji Chang-wook, they are both veteran actors who delivered what was needed from them right up until the home stretch.
If I have to balance the praise with a reproach, I would say that Colony has some very head-scratching moments that will surely infuriate you. The film has a tendency to manufacture tension through dimwitted characters who repeatedly make decisions that no reasonable person would make in that situation. I understand the purpose the first or second time it happens, but it occurs so often that it starts to feel lazy and a clear shortchanging by the writers.
Beyond that, there is also a clear sense of diminishing returns as the movie goes on. It is not nearly as fun as the introductory stretch of the zombie outbreak. Characters slowly then become disposable without getting the development they deserve, and the film’s message gets lost amid the ever-growing numbers of the infected.
Needless to say, Train to Busan remains Yeon Sang-ho’s only masterpiece thus far. The zombie films he has released after it are inferior copies of his formula, and this film is no exception. I did say a while ago that Colony is a fairly good zombie movie, and I still stand by that. What I mean, though, is that it functions really well as a popcorn film you can enjoy with friends and family in cinemas. It delivers the fun and spectacle you might expect from a movie in this genre, and the performances are not bad at all. Albeit, it is largely forgettable because despite all the credible elements on display, the film simply has no soul.
2/5
Now showing in cinemas.