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James Marsh

3/5 stars
Korean superstar Jun Ji-hyun makes her long-awaited return to the big screen in Colony, an action-packed zombie thriller that sees director Yeon Sang-ho revisit the undead mayhem that made his name.
The film just had its world premiere in the Midnight Screenings section of the Cannes Film Festival – a prestigious bow that neatly mirrors the debut of Yeon’s genre-defining blockbuster Train to Busan exactly 10 years prior.
Set apart from the wider Train to Busan franchise, which also includes Seoul Station (2016) and Peninsula (2020), Colony unfolds over a single day and almost entirely within the confines of central Seoul’s Doongwoori Building.


Jun plays Kwon Se-jeong, a biotechnology professor battling a hive mind of rampaging monsters infected by a vengeful scientist, Seo Young-cheol (Koo Kyo-hwan, currently also starring in the hit K-drama We Are All Trying Here).
Kwon arrives with her ex-husband (Go Soo) to attend a biotech conference just as the police receive a call from former employee Seo, who announces his nefarious intentions.
Before the building can be sealed off, Seo infects his old boss with a virus that spreads quickly through the conference rooms and shopping centre below. He also reveals that he has injected himself with the virus, making him the only source of a potential vaccine.
With the authorities outside delaying their next move, Kwon is thrown together with a group of desperate individuals all seeking an escape.

The rampaging horde, initially primitive and easily distracted, quickly evolve into faster and more adept hunters, sharing information subliminally about the whereabouts of any survivors.
Kwon is presented as an outsider, ostracised by her academic peers and now confronted by a new, rapidly conforming community of lethal drones.
Even when leading a group that includes a headstrong security guard (Ji Chang-wook), his wheelchair-using sister (Kim Shin-rok) and an increasingly desperate police officer (Lee Jung-ok), the script demands precious little of Jun beyond simple physical heroics.
Colony’s shopping centre setting invites comparisons to George A. Romero’s 1978 classic Dawn of the Dead, whose innovative prosthetic make-up and scathing critique of consumerism remain for many the definitive take on zombie lore.

Yeon introduces similarly potent concepts, possibly equating our overdependence on social media or blind assimilation of AI technology to a zombie apocalypse, but he is too easily distracted by the film’s commercial obligations.
As mindless, high-octane entertainment, Colony unleashes a slick, acrobatic dose of blood- and vomit-spattered mayhem that recalls everything from 28 Days Later to The Last of Us and even the Alien franchise.
Whenever it pauses to contemplate themes more cerebral than brain-eating, however, Yeon’s film proves somewhat dead behind the eyes.
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Jun Ji-hyun stars as a biotech professor battling bloodthirsty zombies in Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho’s new film


Jun Ji-hyun stars as a biotech professor battling bloodthirsty zombies in Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho’s new film.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Jun Ji-hyun stars as a biotech professor battling bloodthirsty zombies in Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho’s new film

Jun Ji-hyun stars as a biotech professor battling bloodthirsty zombies in Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho’s new film