COLONY (군체) (2026)

Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Yeon Sang-Ho
Cast: Gianna Jun, Koo Kyo-hwan, Ji Chang-wook, Shin Hyun-been, Kim Shin-rock, Go Soo
Runtime: 2 hr 2 mins
Rating: TBA
Released By: Golden Village
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 27 May 2026

Synopsis: In a high-rise building in downtown Seoul, there is a mass outbreak of an unknown infection. Within no time, the building is sealed off, and the people inside are trapped. The infected, after first crawling on all fours like beasts, gradually evolve and begin moving on two feet. Before long they start to identify the survivors and make coordinated group attacks. Biotechnology professor Kwon Se-jeong and several other survivors manage to find Suh Young-chul, who claims to have injected himself with a vaccine, and head to the roof where a rescue team is waiting. However, as they make their way upwards, the situation becomes ever more precarious, and Suh Young-chul uses the infected to block the group’s path… The birth of a new species.

Movie Review:

It would never have been easy to recapture the success of his genre-defining ‘Train to Busan’ – as director Yeon Sang-ho found out in his follow-up ‘Peninsula’ – but Yeon’s long-waited return to the world of zombies comes as close as it can to being another horror classic.

Substituting the titular locomotive of his earlier hit with the confines of central Seoul’s high-rise Doongwoori building, Yeon imagines an act of bio-terrorism unleashed by a disgruntled professor Seo Young-cheol (Koo Kyo-hwan) when he attacks his former CEO at the latter’s Chains Bio company event with a viral agent that he had dismissed as nonsense.

According to Seo, the said chemical agent has the potential to enable humans to “communicate through multilateral network”, and is a demonstration of “information exchange through organic semiconductors”. What it really does is turn humans into zombies – but not just that, into zombies that can communicate, learn and acquire collective intelligence.

That evolution is perhaps the most inventive characteristic of the zombies in ‘Colony’, which evolve quickly from moving to all fours to learning to walk and run like the rest of us, who realise early on the difference between a standee and a real-life flesh and blood human, and who move and hunt in a pack. Oh yes, it is not coincidental that Yeon has named his film ‘colony’ – and indeed the analogy here is how the zombies here are like ants in a colony.

Among those trapped within the building as the authorities quickly seal up to contain the infection are biotech professor Kwon Se-jeong (Gianna Jun), who with the help of her ex-husband Han Gyu-seong (Go Soo) had hoped to secure a job directly with the company CEO; security guard Hyun-seok (Ji chang-wook) and his wheelchair-bound older sister Hyun-hee (Kim Shin-rok); and counter-terrorism officer Lee (Lee Joong-ok). Lee tells the rest that the authorities are less concerned about rescuing them than securing the vaccine within Seo’s body, hence setting up the imperative for them to locate Seo as their ticket to safety.

Like ‘Train to Busan’ and ‘Peninsula’, Yeon taps into the selfish side of human nature to set up the tension from setpiece to setpiece. An early sequence in which the majority of the group are huddled in a darkened outdoor sports store while some others are trapped in a lit sushi restaurant show how some of us would care only for our own survival whereas others would try to do what they can to rescue the clueless and helpless. And perhaps in a somewhat cruel twist of irony, it is Lee who proves to be the most self-centred individual among the lot, his only preoccupation to secure Seo as his way out of the building, even if it comes at the expense of the lives of the rest of the group.  

In contrast, there is a nice dynamic which gradually unfolds between Se-jeong and her ex-husband’s wife Gong Seol-hee (Shin Hyun-been), with the two ladies eventually forging an unlikely alliance to stop the horde of rampaging zombies from taking over the rest of Seoul. That said, we won’t oversell the character work here, because Yeon knows what his fans are here for – and in that regard, delivers just the blood- and vomit-spattered mayhem that they are hungry for.

Eschewing the sort of lengthy setup or exposition that often burdens such self-important endeavours, Yeon goes straight for the jugular (and we mean this literally) within the first 15 minutes of the film. From that point on, it is a tense, taut, and sometimes nail-biting, two hours to the finish, with our ragtag band of survivors going from one harrowing encounter to another, not least with the zombies constantly evolving, learning and adapting. We won’t spoil the surprise here, but suffice to say that Yeon displays admirable restraint without resorting to excesses, such that many of the scenes are bloody, occasionally gory, but never gruesome.

Compared to the unbridled praise of ‘Train to Busan’, critics’ reaction to ‘Colony’ has so far been mixed; but like we said at the start, it was never going to be easy for Yeon to transform the genre like he did the first time round. We dare say though that ‘Colony’ is as good as it gets, delivering the edge-of-your-seat, high-octane entertainment that zombie fans are no doubt seeking, while turning its high-concept into smart, but never pretentious, social commentary. For what it is worth, there is plenty here for you to sink your teeth into.

Movie Rating:

(Yeon Sang-ho’s Colony may not reinvent the zombie genre like Train to Busan, but it comes thrillingly close, delivering a tense, smart, and ferociously entertaining ride powered by evolving zombies, sharp social commentary, and relentless high-rise mayhem)

Review by Gabriel Chong