Not Taking Root
how many zombie movies does it take to kill the zombie movie?
Colony
Director: Yeon Sang-ho • Writers: Yeon Sang-ho, Choi Gyu-seok
Starring: Jun Ji-hyun, Ji Chang-wook, Koo Kyo-hwan, Shin Hyun-been
South Korea • 2hrs 22mins
Opens Hong Kong May 28 • IIB
Grade: C
When Train to Busan dropped on all our heads back in 2016 it did so at the height of the zombie craze. The Walking Dead was at its peak, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, based on the book, was trying to turn the genre upside down, as was Warm Bodies (2013), World War Z wasn’t a disaster yet and One Cut of the Dead (2017) surprised us all with its zombie and horror inventiveness. So what’s left? Short answer: Not much, because director Yeon Sang-ho’s Colony | 군체 is as dull, lifeless and flat as Busan was creative and invigorating within the sub-genre. If nothing Colony – which is not a sequel to Peninsula and is entirely unrelated to the other two films, go figure – makes a case for putting zombies in the corner for a time out.
Don’t get me wrong. Colony is slick, sharp, ultra-well produced genre tentpole schlock, with a starry if simultaneously anonymous cast, stellar VFX and SFX, and some innovative zombie gore, but it’s also an amalgam of Busan, Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, The Last of Us and the invincible Resident Evil game franchise. What’s the metaphor? How are these zombies new? What is Yeon saying? Why is it so hard to figure out if the two researchers are related? If you’re looking for some splattery fun you could do worse. But if you’re hoping for the evolution of zombie lore, best just move along.
The requisite survivors
Bitch or misunderstood genius biotechnology professor, it’s unclear which, Kwon Se-jeong (forever My Sassy Girl Jun Ji-hyun), and her colleague and ex-husband – because they’re always colleagues and exes when movies need antagonistic science experts – Han Gyu-seong (Go Soo) attend a conference hosted by Chains Bio CEO Kang Woo-cheol and wind up caught in the middle of a highly infectious pathogen outbreak that’s as deadly as it is funky. Seems Kang stole some research from another genius, Seo Young-cheol (Koo Kyo-hwan, Escape from Mogadishu and yes, Peninsula), cut him out of the probably forthcoming glory and profits, and now Seo is lording it over everyone as the only person with an antiviral solution to the outbreak; this shit’s about to take over Seoul. The usual suspects banding together and trying to get out of the mall of the Doongwoori Building to a rescue squad also include security guard Hyun-seok (Ji Chang-wook), his paraplegic sister Hyun-hee (Kim Shin-rok, Burning), a shady cop, some teenaged cool kid types, a girl they bully and, randomly, a former track and field star. You can well imagine the roles/plot beats each represents because Colony is nothing if not loyal to genre convention. Also along for the ride is Gong Seol-hee (Shin Hyun-been, Yeon’s equally unfocused The Ugly), Gyu-seong’s current wife and another genius biotech researcher. So many genius researchers.
There’s a tight, entertaining B movie buried somewhere in Colony’s overly-generous two-and-a-half hours, and there is some cleverness vis-à-vis zombie convention, chiefly in the hive mind communication angle and the “scientific” evolving shared consciousness among the undead. Not so much in the collective action – anyone who’s tuned in to the franchise since Star Trek: The Next Generation will instantly feel the Borg – but in the physical how of it. When the shamblers learn something or feel something or are threatened the rigid repose is truly unsettling, as is the Cronenberg-approved multi-bodied super-zombie that defies standard concepts of yoga flexibility. The visual playfulness and commitment to messing with the human body is more reminiscent of Yeon’s The King of Pigs and Seoul Station than anything in Peninsula, and the organic, creeping mushroom-y vine is as unsavoury as it is in the HBO series about the killer cordyceps.
But none of that saves Colony from feeling derivative and overly-familiar everywhere else. Again, what’s the metaphor this time, because zombies always mean something else. Is it consumerism (the mall), the flattening of humanity as it relates to technology (AI), late-stage capitalist steam-rolling of the working and middle classes? Is this another pandemic movie? It’s impossible to tell what’s going on in here thanks to the jumble of references and thinly sketched characters, designed to move the action rather than tell us anything about them or the themes. If Yeon and co-writer Choi Gyu-seok were purely concerned with gnarly action, nasty kills and gooey zombie effluvia then mission accomplished, but if this is supposed to juice the tired zombie thriller it may be time to lop its head off.