South Korean director Yeon Sang-ho, known for his 2016 breakout hit Train to Busan, returned to the zombie genre with his new film Colony, which premiered in a midnight screening at the Cannes Film Festival. Unlike his earlier work, Yeon aimed to explore contemporary anxieties around the rapid spread of information and the collective consciousness shaped by social media and artificial intelligence.

Colony centers on a virus unleashed by a vengeful scientist, played by Koo Kyo-hwan, that quickly transforms the infected into aggressive, flesh-eating creatures. The outbreak takes place inside a Seoul shopping mall, where survivors—including a biotech professor portrayed by Jun Ji-hyun—are trapped and forced to fight for their lives. A unique aspect of the film lies in how the zombies evolve, developing a hive mind that allows them to share information and mutate like a virus. Meanwhile, the surviving humans exhibit regressive, savage behaviors, highlighting a thematic inversion between the creatures’ rapid evolution and humanity’s collapse.

Yeon described the film’s central metaphor as an allegory for the modern-day fears of collective consciousness fueled by social media and the expanding role of artificial intelligence. “When you have a lot of points of view on social media, they really spread very rapidly, and you just realise that consciousness is ruling everything,” he said, adding that the accelerating pace of technology influenced the zombie concept in Colony.

While Colony nods to landmark zombie films such as George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, which also took place in a shopping mall, Yeon distinguishes his work through the vigorous physicality of the zombies. Rather than the slow-moving undead of earlier films, he employed an avant-garde dance troupe to create fluid, collective movements symbolizing the hive mind. Yeon likened their performance to “10 fingers playing the piano,” emphasizing coordinated yet distinct roles within the group.

Visually, the film incorporates elements inspired by Ridley Scott’s Alien, featuring zombies that excrete a striking white substance to heighten the visceral impact. Yeon noted that the color scheme was carefully tested to evoke intensity and discomfort.

Though initial critical reception of Colony has been mixed, Yeon views the film as a departure from the themes of Train to Busan, which he described as a critique of “extreme capitalist society.” Despite Train to Busan’s worldwide success and several spin-offs, including a prequel and sequel, Yeon has no immediate plans to continue with zombie stories. His next project is Human Vapor, an eight-episode science-fiction crime thriller set for release on Netflix in July, which he co-wrote.