By Alex McPherson

A zombie actioner that makes up for its narrative weaknesses with bone-contorting gusto and ruthless sensibilities, director Yeon Sang-ho’s “Colony” hits the sweet spot of gnarly entertainment.

Taking place in modern day Seoul, South Korea, the film opens with disgruntled biochemist Seo Young-chul (Koo Kyo-hwan) warning police that he’s preparing to launch a bioterrorist attack at the Dongwoo-ri conference building using redesigned slime molds.

He also injects himself with the supposed vaccine, making his survival essential to containing the mysterious virus he’s about to unleash on unsuspecting conference goers — and on one higher-up in particular. 

Biotech CEO Kang Woo-chul (Kim Jong-tae) is giving a presentation on bioengineered slime molds that are designed to enable cell regeneration and “hive mind” collective intelligence. Scientist Han Kyo-seong (Go Soo) is attending the talk with his prickly (and unemployed) ex-wife Kwon Se-jeong (Gianna Jun), hoping to land her a job with Woo-chul’s company, Chains Bio. 

Unfortunately, her job prospects are quickly dashed, as Young-chul injects Woo-chul with a syringe filled with the slime mold material he accuses Woo-chul of plagiarizing. This prompts Woo-chul to vomit extravagantly and transform into a goopy, fast-running creature (pretty much a zombie) hungry for human flesh and having an affinity for impressively floppy parkour

The killcount rises as Woo-chul bites and infects everyone within sight, while Kyo-seong and Se-jeong scramble for safety, trapped in the building as the whole place becomes overrun with the infected. 

These aren’t just any ordinary zombies, though. They’re all connected through a kind of swarm intelligence, able to learn and evolve on the fly as each new bug in the system is gradually accounted for, every link of the chain privy to the same knowledge. Absorbing new information causes them to stare mouth agape at the ceiling (a sound equivalent to a demonic cow mooing plays), before becoming “upgraded.”

They are constantly evolving as a unit and accounting for inconsistencies (like, for example, initially mistaking people on poster advertisements for flesh-and-blood humans). 

Kyo-seong and Se-jeong soon encounter off-duty security guard Choi Hyun-seok (Ji Chang-wook) and his wheelchair-dependent sister Hyun-hee (Kim Shin-rok), along with counterterrorism leader Lee Bong-seok (Lee Joong-ok) and some panicking teenagers. T

he group is soon on a mission to find Young-chul and escape the building, hopefully preventing the spread of this wild outbreak along the way. Time is running out, and “Colony” makes no qualms about how profoundly screwed they all are, and how quickly they will betray each other.

Chaos ensues. Sure, “Colony” isn’t high art, nor is it particularly groundbreaking from a narrative standpoint. There’s also plenty to critique when just looking at characters’ moment-to-moment logic, which, at times, seems explicitly tuned for maximum death. But “Colony” still leaps along with a propulsive sense of nihilistic glee. 

Sang-ho and Choi Gyu-seok’s screenplay sidelines thematic depth for a series of escalating set pieces and thrillingly dynamic camerawork that keeps the pacing swift, the gore flowing freely, and the fun factor extremely high from start to finish — rarely pausing for more than a few minutes before launching its unlucky group into new scenarios dealing with the ever-changing, bloodthirsty horde.

Indeed, for all its cynicism, “Colony” is pretty damn charming if one doesn’t think too hard about things. And, to the film’s credit, Sang-ho doesn’t give us enough time to think.

None of these characters are particularly compelling, but the ensemble makes do, mainly Jun, who brings a sense of resourceful badassery that’s a great avenue for the film’s increasing stakes and peril. Chang-wook and Shin-rok carry much of the film’s (limited) pathos, leaning into melodrama late in the film that doesn’t fully land.

Kyo-hwan, on the other hand, is fully on the film’s deranged wavelength — a slick-haired, mischievous Big Bad waltzing through crowds of zombies with snarky gusto. Gone are the “failures of communication” that plague the human race, according to Woo-chul: the zombies are an improvement. Sure, dude.

But when one looks past the simplicity and lack of meaningful character development, “Colony” is a blast, with cinematographer Byun Bong-sun throwing us into elaborately choreographed carnage and claustrophobic standoffs with life-or-death stakes and a devilish sense of humor. The stunt team deserves a special shoutout.

These zombies are terrifying more because of their athleticism than their appearance, and we get to see their brains develop in real-time as “Colony” digs our trapped people further and further into their own graves. 

By the time “Colony” wraps up, it’s practically an all-out action film, almost Michael Bay-esque. And I had a big dumb grin on my face the entire time. Sometimes, that’s all one can really ask for, and this film delivers — nothing more, nothing less.

“Colony” is a 2026 Korean zombie horror movie directed by Yeon Sang-ho and starring Jun Ji-hyun, Koo Kyo-hwan, Kim Shin-rock, Shin Hyeon-bin, Go Soo and Kim Jong-tae. It is rated R for bloody violent content and some language and runs 2 hours, 2 minutes. It showed at the Hi-Pointe Theatre Aug. 28 – Aug. 31. Alex’s Grade: B+