“Train to Busan” proved that humans can’t outrun the infected. “Colony” proves they can’t outsmart them.
Director Yeon Sang-ho returns to the zombie genre with his third live-action thriller, “Colony,” expanding the “Yeoniverse,” the cinematic universe he’s built through his genre-defining horror films. The South Korean film marks Gianna Jun’s (aka Jun Ji-hyun) long-awaited return to the big screen after 11 years alongside Koo Kyo-hwan and Ji Chang-wook.
“Colony,” which made its North American premiere as the opening night film of the 25th New York Asian Film Festival, and will arrive in U.S. theaters August 28 through Well Go USA, follows Kwon Se-jeong, played by Gianna, an unemployed biotech professor who becomes trapped inside a high-rise building after a rapidly mutating virus breaks out. The survivors must escape while the infected evolve into something smarter and more dangerous than you’re run-of-the-mill zombies.
Indeed, the zombies in “Colony” are unlike anything audiences have seen from Yeon before. Rather than standard reanimated corpses, the infected are connected by a collective intelligence, allowing them to learn, adapt and coordinate as one. When one zombie evolves, the entire group evolves with it.
“The hardest part,” Yeon explains to Variety, “was figuring out how to visually express zombies that exist in the form of a colony with collective intelligence. To convey that intuitively to the audience, the movement of the zombies had to be unique.” In “Train to Busan,” he used breakdancers to choreograph the infected’s movements. “Colony” took a different approach: “This time, we hired modern dance teams who were more experienced in choreographing group movements in an effort to create movements that could place a stronger emphasis on their collective nature.”
According to Yeon, the idea of a collective organism influenced his approach to the film. “I found it very interesting how, in reality, actual collective or colony-based organisms always produce variants or mutations. The reason for this is that because they are a group made of the exact same properties, if a single weakness is discovered, the entire colony could die off all at once, so they constantly create variants.”
The driving force behind the film’s antagonist, Seo Young-chul (Koo Kyo-hwan), is his belief that imperfect communication is the source of all tragedy. This belief causes him to orchestrate the film’s bioterrorist attack. Yeon, however, doesn’t agree with him.
“I think I’ve explored the question of what it means to be ‘human’ through many of my previous films,” he maintains. “In this work, I had the same concerns. What I consider to be ‘humanism’ in this film is individuality. In other words, I believe that humans have no choice but to possess individuality, and because we can’t achieve perfect communication, we are actually all the more human.”
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While Young-chul sees individuality as humanity’s greatest flaw, Se-jeong’s character represents the strength of it. While developing Se-jeong, Yeon envisioned a character who was an outcast but not someone weakened by isolation. He wanted her to be someone who is assertive and confident enough to choose solitude for herself. “Kwon Se-jeong is a complex character. She has to be someone who is an outcast but also someone who is confident,” he says. “When I thought about who could express that, I naturally thought of Gianna.”
Yeon’s admiration for Gianna’s ability to portray unconventional female characters goes back to the beginning of her career. “Even in her debut film, ‘My Sassy Girl,’ her character was something that had never really been seen before in Korean cinema,” he offers. “I’ve always thought of her as an actress who shifted the paradigm for female characters. Since then, she has continued to shift that paradigm multiple times through various roles and performances.”
The film’s ending scene hints that the battle against the infected may not be over. Yeon admits there are already plans for what comes next but not in the way fans expect. Rather than teasing another film, Yeon revealed that he is currently discussing the possibility of continuing the story of “Colony”as a video game with Smilegate, the film’s co-producer and game developer.
As far as the inspirations behind “Colony” go, Yeon pointed to the 1978 sci-fi horror classic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” as one of the biggest influences behind the film. Other recent works that inspired him were “28 Years Later” and “The Last of Us.”
As Korean cinema continues to expand globally, Gianna was asked whether she hopes to pursue any Hollywood projects in the future. The short answer is no. “I strongly feel that ‘what is most Korean is what is most global,’” she says. “Rather than seeking out work abroad, I think it’s more meaningful to work with great directors and actors right here in Korea.”
Yeon shared a similar sentiment when asked about a potential Hollywood remake of “Train to Busan.” While acknowledging that there had been some efforts to remake the film in English, he said he has no desire to direct one himself: “I feel I’ve fully expressed everything I wanted to do through the original film ‘Train to Busan.’”
Nearly a decade after “Train to Busan” changed the perception of Korean horror worldwide, “Colony” suggests that the next evolution of onscreen zombies isn’t one that is simply faster or stronger, but one that is smarter.