Who doesn’t love a good zombie movie? I’m going to say anyone who turns into a zombie, I guess. In Colony, there are lots and lots of zombies, with a twist.
I’m going to write this review with as few spoilers as possible, but it’s going to be tricky. In a nutshell, Colony is one of the most original ideas from a zombie movie I’ve seen in a while.
Colony stars Jun Ji-hyun, Koo Kyo-hwan, Ji Change-wook, Kim Shin-rock, Shin Hyeon-bin, Go Soo, and Kim Hyung-mook. Yeon Sang-ho directs, who is best known for Train to Busan and Peninsula. I thought Train to Busan was a great zombie flick, but Peninsula, not so much. Out of the three, Colony is his best work.
The Story
The official story for Colony is:
Professor Se Jeong attends a biotech conference, only to witness it spiral into catastrophe when a rapidly mutating virus is unleashed. As the outbreak spreads and the infected begin to transform, authorities seal off the entire facility.
Se Jeong (Ji-hyun) is there for the conference and meets up with her ex-husband. She then sees the CEO of the company in whose facility the conference is being held being attacked. Attacked is a strong word; he’s more confronted by Seo Yeong Cheol (Kyo-hwan).
Seo blames the CEO of the company for his back, so he infects him with ‘something’. It turns him into an infected, and all hell breaks loose.
Seo ends up in a group of survivors holed up in a shop near the ground floor of the building. These zombies are different though; they seem to be able to communicate through a hive mind; if one learns something, they can all learn it.
A colony, if you will. Without spoiling anything, as this progresses they have to try and survive with no help from the outside. There is a lot more to the story, an awful lot, and it’s very, very good.
A Different Type of Zombie
There are many types of the living dead:
- Risen from the grave
- Infected
- Snyderboyz and Disney Star Wars fans
All brain-dead, incoherent walking bodies, with no thought process. What if they could communicate? Not like Disney fans, who randomly bang on a keyboard in the hope that the letters make sense.
In Colony, they all seem to ‘download’ information from each other. At first they seem to communicate with pheromones, but now and then they ‘update’ with information. I can’t recall a movie that’s done this; please correct me if I’m wrong.
The movie then takes it to another level. Again, without spoiling things, what if one infected person could then update them all with information? If that person knew where the survivors were hiding, he could tell the infected. It added a great new level to the genre.
Korean Cinema
Sang-ho is Korean, and Korea has some incredible movie makers. You have movies like The Host, Oldboy, Parasite, Train to Busan, I Saw the Devil, A Tale of Two Sisters, all really great movies. Foreigners sometimes do movies much better than Hollywood.
As I said, I was a fan of Train to Busan; I’ve seen it a few times, and had fun with it. I like the idea of zombies on a train. Colony is more like Die Hard; zombies in a building, but not like Dawn of the Dead.
Sang-ho’s direction is excellent. There are long and complex shots, with some clever takes on the infected. The story unfolds really well. I’ve only really given you information on the first act, as it goes on great characters emerge and you get invested in them all.
Overall
Colony might be the best ‘zombie’ movie I’ve seen in a few years. We’ve had reboots of Resident Evil, The Army of the Dead, 28 Days/Months/Years Later. The only one that comes close to Colony is One Cut of the Dead, which is the best zombie movie ever! I will die on that hill.
As I said, Colony adds an interesting new layer to the genre; the communication thing is very clever, and brings the movie to a satisfying conclusion. The ending is a little cheesy, but I let that slip, as the rest of the movie was so well done.
There are some great elements in Colony, clever takes and a premise that really gripped me. Out of the three zombie movies that Sang-ho has made, this is the best one. I put this head and shoulders above Train to Busan.
I’m giving Colony 4.5 out of 5 stars, and I will be watching it again.
