Colony Review: Train to Busan Director’s New Zombie Flick Trades High-Speed Rail For A Locked-Down Mall, And The Result Is A Predictable Floor-By-Floor Romp

Colony  (NC16)

Starring Jun Ji-hyun, Koo Kyo-hwan, Ji Chang-wook, Shin Hyun-been, Kim Shin-rock

Directed by Yeon Sang-ho

From Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho, comes another zom romp.

This time, the zombies stay in one place trapping a bunch of survivors in a locked-down office building-shopping mall in Seoul. Their origin is revealed. A barmy one.

This time, Jun Ji-hyun, aka Gianna Jun, is here.

Look, a building isn't a train. So while TTB was kinetically thrilling, no matter how many humans and zombies get thrown into this fight, it feels primarily static. Floor by floor, it gets predictable and kinda boring with characters you don't care about.

Certainly, director/co-writer Yeon knows how to stage tense scenes. Mall floor. Elevator. Rooftop. Close calls. Sacrifice. Sabotage. But they become back-and-forth repetitive. Where is Don Lee when we need him?

Give points though to the zom-master for refreshing his undead hobby. His zombies drip puke, clump together, slam their heads against photos of cute dudes on wall ads as though they hate BTS.

Psycho biologist, Dr Suh Young-chul (Once We Were Us’ Koo Kyo-hwan), pissed off with his ex-boss for stealing his research, creates these zoms using a bio-terror virus.

“Collective intelligence is the key force driving evolution.” Huh? I got confused by his long-winded explanation.

Basically, Yeon gets too gimmicky inserting our messaging systems into his zombie-verse. Needing to keep silent, ala A Quiet Place, the stragglers communicate via group-chat on phones. The zoms, meanwhile, use their mind-meld chat.

Arrogant Suh seeks to birth a new humanity — zombies controlled by him via his thoughts like X-Men's Professor X. He sees what they see. It's based on the command structure of an ant colony. So this looks like Die Hard meets Dawn Of The Dead meets Ant Man.

The chatty baddie yaks about perfect communication stopping all tragedies as though he's a PR god. Can he shut the eff up? He doesn't because he's the protected vaccine for his own virus.

The hellish hooligans crawl-run, progress to two feet, and attack selected targets instead of chomping on everybody. Freezing like a flash mob of statues, they become beacons receiving a central signal. Before charging again with updated zom-ware.

This is the first thing. Looks ridiculous. Like Michael Jackson's ‘Thriller’ dancers frozen by a noise complaint.

Second thing is a far bigger kick. Jun Ji-hyun is back.

After 2015's Assassination, her last film, she's 44 and looks totally fab. But while you're expecting her to copy Sigourney Weaver in Aliens in a My Sassy Kickass Girl way, she seems sorta unsure here. Maybe wondering why the hell she's gallivanting with performance-art weirdoes.

There are Aliens action rip-offs with infected monkeys. And since this is a K-flick, also Oldboy-style slasheroos. A security guard, blaming his fellow survivors for the death of his disabled sister, takes on both freaks and friends with a knife.

Director Yeon recycles this bit of irony from Train to Busan. To show that humans are monsters too.

Jun plays Kwon Se-jeong, a biotech professor who's locked in while attending a seminar. She's abrasive with a stubborn streak of justice which even her ex-husband and his new wife worry about.

Now, this old-new spouse angle is a big deal here because both Kwon and her former hubby's new missus, Prof Gong (Confidential Assignment's Shin Hyun-been) — everyone's an egghead — team up in a modern-age combo that serves as a model for world peace. At least among past, present, future, even zombie wives.

Wife Gong works the emergency on the outside in a command post with CCTV screens, becoming the eyes for ex-wife Kwon fighting alongside very lousy specimens of mankind. A cop sacrificing another survivor to save both VIV (Very Important Vaccine) Suh and his own tail. Two annoying teens, a bully and her victim, straight out of Mean Girls.

You wonder why director Yeon doesn't use his true ace, Jun, better.

There's a running gag here about her Prof Kwon being unlikeable with zero friends.

Impossible.

This is delectable Jun Ji-hyun's comeback after going missing on the big screen for 11 years.

That description is as absurd as this pic's crazy zombies. (3/5 stars) in cinemas now