Colony review
New ideas mix well with some old ones.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Colony
Directed by Yeon Sang-ho
Written by Yeon Sang-ho and Choi Gyu-seck
Starring Jun Ji-hyun, Koo Kyo-hwan, Ji Chang-wook, Kim Shin-rok, Shing Hyun-bin, Go Soo and Kim Hyung-mook
Colony Review
Making your masterpiece early in your career can be tough. The most famous example is, obviously, Orson Welles. He directed Citizen Kane when he was just 25 years old. It’s often regarded as one of the best movies ever made…and even though Welles made some great movies after it…the shadow of Kane extended over his entire career. It doesn’t always work that way, of course. Steven Spielberg made Jaws and it didn’t stop him from throwing Raiders of the Lost Ark out there six years later. And whatever other films of his you throw into the category.
Two movies from the last dozen years I would consider to be modern masterpieces are It Follows and Train to Busan. It Follows director David Robert Mitchell didn’t exactly follow it up with a decade plus of movies people think about…though The End of Oak Street got some positive critical appraisal. Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho hasn’t lit the world on fire in the decade since its release either. Colony, like his Busan sequel Peninsula, courts the comparisons straight on. Yes, it’s another virus that unleashes a slew of professional contortionists turned zombie-like creatures. Sang-ho trades in trains for a high rise building…and mindless zombies for increasingly intelligent antagonists. The result is a very good movie. One that will be stuck under the shadow of his previous masterpiece no matter what it accomplishes.
And it actually accomplishes a pretty good amount. Colony is full of great ideas. For the most part it carries a strong momentum too. Though it does end up feeling a tad longer than it needs to be and never reaches near the emotional heights of Train to Busan, Colony offers up a great time at the movies. Even though it is another fast zombie style affair…Colony has two of the most important things a horror movie can have. A strong protagonist…and a fantastic villain. Now…you’re probably thinking…aren’t the zombie type creatures the villains? Well…that’s one of the ways Colony finds a new path through a similar apocalypse.
The inciting incident of Colony involves a biochemical attack. Specifically, the virus I mentioned above. There’s a method to Seo Young-chul’s (Koo Kyo-hwan) madness. He believes that the next evolution of humanity is shared consciousness. That’s exactly what he unleashes on the company head who he feels stole his concept…simply removing the genocidal aspects before moving forward. He’s also injected the only vaccine for the virus into his own bloodstream…marking him safe from the growing horde…and a target that needs to be brought in alive.
But that’s not all there is to Soo Young-chul. As part of the group mind he can see through the eyes of those that turn…and even control them. It makes him a fascinating character. Able to walk through danger without pause…and unleash it without hesitation. And that horde is only growing smarter. The point of the virus is evolution. What begins as a group of easily fooled monsters crawling on all fours eventually adapts into extremely intelligent and remarkably nimble bringers of death.
Standing in his way is Kwon Se-jeong (Jun Ji-hyun), an intelligent and resourceful professor whose understanding of the virus’s effect on people gives her (and the ragtag group of misfits banded together to eventually be picked off) a fighting chance at surviving. I mentioned that Colony can’t reach the heights of emotional connection and devastation that Train to Busan did…but some of it works pretty well. There are still heroes and untrustworthy people everywhere you look. It’s one of the issues with revisiting similar grounds. Even when you come up with new ideas…the structure is always going to be roughly the same.
Colony starts a bit slow, but it introduces a lot of characters while building to its unleashed madness. The middle hour of the movie is where its true strength lies. When it is firing on all cylinders…Colony is a great time. It wears out its welcome a bit by the finish line…but it manages to turn its protagonist into as much of a brilliant badass as its notable villain while doing so. It adds up to an easy recommendation even if you’re unlikely to see the peaks of Train to Busan again. I never watched Peninsula because I never heard good things about it. I can tell you enough good things about Colony to consider it a worthy successor to Yeon Sang-ho’s masterpiece. If that’s worth something to you…give Colony a try.
Scare Value
The truth is that “from the director of Train to Busan” doesn’t hit as hard in 2026 as it would have ten years ago. That’s what happens when you follow up a masterpiece with movies that fail to challenge it. Colony doesn’t challenge it either…but it holds its own as a worthwhile spiritual successor. The big ideas hit. The smaller ones are repeated beats. You’ll have to weight what that means for your enjoyment of the movie. Because Busan is going to be on your mind the entire time whether you want it to be or not. That’s the price of making a movie that good.
3.5/5
Colony Link
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