Colony (2026) Review

At the high rise Doongwoori Building in Seoul, Professor Kwon Se-jeong (Jun Ji-hyun) attends a biotech conference, the subject of which is how the collective intelligence of a hive mind may be harnessed. Although this research is presented by a corporate CEO, it’s really the work of scientist Seo Yeong-cheol (Koo Kyo-hwan) who has previously been booted unceremoniously from the business and has been planning his revenge from the sidelines ever since.

Seo Yeong-cheol injects himself with the vaccine for the virus he is about to unleash and the crashes the conference, stabbing the CEO with a vial of said virus and then waiting for the mayhem to commence. Meanwhile, Kwon and ex-husband Han Gyu-seong (Go Soo) are in the midst of an uncomfortable post-event meal and are about to be trapped with a number of others as the infection spreads and the building is locked down…

It’s ten years since director Yeon Sang-ho gave the zombie flick a vital shot in the arm with the superb Train To Busan and fans have been waiting that decade to see if he can possibly emulate that classic’s combination of invention, emotion and blazing action. Follow-up (of sorts) Peninsula was viewed as something of a disappointment in various quarters, although if you set it against most other undead movies I think it holds up pretty well. My feeling is that nothing is ever likely to be Train To Busan and why would we want to see it again? It’s already there. Colony, despite a final act which is slightly overlong due to the stakes being raised again and again and again, shows there’s somehow life – and a fair amount of familiar death – to be found in this subgenre.

The central concept is a doozy, as the zombies learn and share information by non-verbal communication, meaning the folks attempting to escape them must think of new ways to outwit them each time. They’re initially creatures with little intelligence, running around clumsily on all fours, then they’re given the means to stand and their efficiency at pursuing their prey is improved. Their means of identifying that prey is updated with each subsequent attack and Seo Young-cheol’s already genius-level smarts come into prey as he’s able to keep tabs on the dwindling number of survivors who are trying to get hold of him so the rescue team can come in, save everyone and have a means of stopping the infection from spreading across the city.

Of course, the hive – and Seo Yeong-cheol – needs a formidable opponent and Professor Kwon is up to the task, assuming the role of the de facto leader because that’s exactly what she’s been doing up to that point, carving out her career path on her own terms and not caring what anyone thinks of her. That early conversation with the ex-hubby has him worried that, if he emigrates to the United States to take up a post he’s recently been offered, no one will employ the prickly, no-nonsense Kwon, setting up the film’s comment on how certain women in society are seen as difficult when in reality it’s the men who are afraid of being cast aside for someone far more capable.

In addition to Kwon, the non-infected group are the usual ragtag bunch, including a few teenagers (one of whom is the most annoying character in the film, hands down, or at least that was the opinion of much of the screening room), a security guard and his disabled sister, a cop who was sent to arrest the bio-terrorist but is now caught up in the situation, a boorish bloke who seems a bit of a coward…you know, the sort of people you’d expect to be thrown together to fight an ever growing horde of ghouls.

For a movie which runs slightly over two hours, there’s surprisingly little time to draw breath during Colony. Most of the exposition is dumped in the first ten minutes, there’s the awkward meal to explain the dynamics between Kwon and her ex-hubby then it’s straight into the chaos, giving brief updates on the strategy of both sides as the battle progresses and goals change and heading out of the tower block from time to time to follow a crisis team as they attempt to piece together what the bad guy has been doing in his enforced period of unemployment. Trust me, it’s not good and at one point it leads to a fun, exciting, if slightly CG-heavy, romp in a makeshift lab.

Back at Doongwoori, there’s much traversing of the complex and escalating conflict within Kwon’s group, worn down by scrap after scrap against the drooling masses. Some of it’s predictable, given the zombie film template we’ve come to know as a friend over the decades, but some of it does still possess the power to surprise. If you’re playing the game of who in the group will die first, the answer might come as a bit of a surprise, although in retrospect there’s a certain inevitability to it given some of the writing up to that point. In general, these are people who are more than sympathetic enough for it to hit hard when they’re lost to the infected and the effect of that loss will shift the motivations of certain characters in an organic, realistic way.

The shopping mall sequences can’t help but recall Dawn Of The Dead but there’s little shuffling about and the zombies here – if you can use that term – don’t need rookie level mistakes or sheer weight of numbers to get their teeth into their targets. Unlike Dawn, rampant consumerism isn’t under the microscope but Colony has plenty to say about individual thought versus the prevailing opinion of the masses and how lone voices are often treated with suspicion. Don’t worry, though, the subtext doesn’t get in the way of the imaginative action, ramping up to ridiculous, brilliantly choreographed levels as the villain of the piece wanders nonchalantly through scenes of widescreen carnage. Appropriate kudos to Koo Kyo-hwan who gives us a nemesis for the ages.

In summary, let’s stop wishing that everything is Train To Busan. Colony is sharp, clever, violent and blackly comic in all right places, especially whenever another great idea is thwarted. It might not know quite when to stop but the screenplay by Yeon Sang-ho and Choi Kyu-seok overflows with creativity and if they didn’t want to prune some of the plot swerves, I do get it. The zombie movie is definitely alive and unwell and coating its surroundings with gloopy mucus.

Movie Rating:

Colony trailer