My Thoughts on "Colony" (2026)

 

(This is the English poster for Colony (2026).) 

 

 

 

I finally I had enough free time to watch this movie. I was busy for the past few week, I kept going to Albuquerque for pretty much every day for the past week, and even today (Tuesday October 20, 2026) when I'm starting to write this. Obviously, last Wednesday (October 14, 2026), it was my grandma's payday, so went down to get some stuff we need for the house like paper towels, toilet paper (or as my grandma and apparently Costco calls it, "bath tissue"), Kleenex tissue, disinfectant wipes, trash bags, laundry detergent, softener, things like that. Then in the days after, we went back, either to get new supplies for our new addition (we're making a new addition to our house using the money 💵 from my dad's lawsuit) or to go the casino 🎰 for my grandma to either pick up one of her free gifts 🎁 that the casinos 🎰 giveaway every week, or to play her free promo. It's been like that for the past week and the past couple of days. We've hardly been home. 

 

It's just like when we first got the money 💵, we were going to Albuquerque pretty much every day of every week, spending like crazy because finally, we had money 💵. We've been broken for so long that once we finally had money 💵, once we had disposable income, we got excited, and all we wanted to do was spend. We pretty much took it as an opportunity to do all the things we always wanted to, but couldn't because we were broke and didn't have any money 💵 to do the things we wanted to do, buy the things we wanted to buy. We were just barely getting by, we didn't even have our Internet 🛜 in the last few months before my dad got his check, and that money 💵 from my dad's lawsuit was a lifesaver. We paid off all of my grandma's debts 💸, and then once that was taken care of, we just started using that money 💵 to do what we wanted to and buy what we wanted to buy. 

 

But we overdid that, and my grandma ended up getting a minus in her own bank account. Don't worry too much though, we put my aunt in charge of the money 💵, and she put it in multiple different accounts, squaring enough money 💵 to big purchases, like stuff for our new addition and my new computer 🖥️. So, even if my grandma's account was in the red, we still had more than enough money 💵 to get by and survive off of. And then I've got my own money 💵 on the way with my own lawsuit against Supplementary Security Income (SSI) for denying me the disability benefits that I was rightful owed all these years since I was a baby. We're doing it through the same law firm my dad is did his lawsuit, Keller & Keller. If all goes well, which we're fairly confident that it will, then I'll be receiving at least back pay (I don't know how I'll get, but we're all hoping it's a lot) and then I will be receiving SSI benefits from then on. But that's a few years out, they told us it would take at least two or three years to win the case. 

 

In the mean, we have to slow down on our spending, not go to Albuquerque or go to the casino 🎰 as much. But right now, it's kind of hard to do because something always comes up that pretty much forces us to go down to Albuquerque. For my grandma at least, she always gives me the option not to go, but I always go to keep her company because she's the kind of person who hates being alone, and I like hanging out with her. I enjoy her company. Her and I have fun together when we go down to Albuquerque together. I'll admit I am possessive when it comes to her, like a lot of times, I just like it with her and me, and no one else, and I kind of getting annoyed about when other people come with us, or when she invites other people to have lunch or dinner with us at the restaurant, but I am trying to get better at this. 

 

I know it's not right, and we did have argument about this, but I am trying my best not be that way. I'm trying to improve myself and become a better person, and be open to other people coming with us to Albuquerque or eating with us at restaurants. I know there are other people my grandma wants to hang out with and talk to, and I have to accept that, and I can't keep her away. It's not like I have much power in the household, she holds all the power, and if she really doesn't want me to go with her places anymore, she'll tell me. I don't want that happen, so I'm trying not to be possessive of my grandma and not get mad or upset when others come with us or join us to eat at restaurants unprompted. 

 

And the way I see it is if I work out these problems now, then I won't have them if I ever end up in a romantic relationship ❤️, and I end up having a girlfriend, and the relationship will go smoothly, with no issues or internal problems. Because I already worked through my problems, and became a better person as a result, and I'm ready to the best boyfriend I can be. That's another reason why I don't necessarily want a relationship right now, I just don't I'm ready for it, emotionally. I don't want to do the wrong thing, and end up being the reason why the relationship didn't work. All my friendships failed because of me, I don't want that to happen with my romantic relationships ❤️.  

 

Plus, I get free food pretty much. Most of the time, I just go with her so I can eat something without having to cook something at home. I don't know how to cook that many things, mainly just ramen, cereal, bagels 🥯, popcorn, eggs 🍳, and canned soup but I don't want eat that. Oh, and I do know how to cook Pasta Aglio e Olio, but I don't really feel doing all the work to cook it when I'm at home by myself and my grandma and/or my dad are somewhere else, doing something without me. Just the thought of having to deal with dirty dishes just puts me off to the idea of cooking at home for myself. A lot of times, I'd rather my grandma just bring something back to eat, like at a fast food place or something. I know that cooking at home is something I'll have to do if I ever start living on my own, I can't always go out to eat, it's not healthy anyway, but in the current living situation I'm living in, the arrangement I have, I feel like I don't need to cook, and I don't want to. Because I'm too lazy. 

 

Does my grandma enable me to be lazy? Yes. But, her and I don't really seem to have a problem with it. We like the way things are with our food situation. Or at least I do. I pay for the meals occasionally, especially when she doesn't have any cash 💵 in her wallet. I end up being the one to pay. Even when she does have enough money 💵 to pay, she'll often ask me to pay the tip, or at least contribute to the tip. I do admittedly get upset when she does this because I wanted to save that money 💵 for something else, including food, but I try not to make an issue out of it because I don't want to start an argument, and I don't want us at each other's throats, and I figure that it's the least I can do since grandma takes care of me, and supports me in every way you can imagine. 

 

I mean, I let her use my EBT card to buy food at the grocery store when we need, because I do receive SNAP benefits. I was negatively affected by the SNAP crisis of last year (2025) when the government was shut down, and Trump received to give out SNAP benefits during the shutdown even though he was legally obligated to do so. Trump not following the law, who would've guess? as you can imagine.I'm not stingy about that because we need it. It's only we can survive. We can't always live off fast food or sit down restaurants. I even let her hold onto it, it's probably better that way anyway. For everything that she does for me, I can at least do that. It's pretty reasonable. I don't want to be too much of burden on her. I try not to stress her out too much, overwork her. 

 

If there's something I can do that will help take the load off of her, I'll do it. Like my laundry, I do my own laundry. even if she tries to talk me out of it a lot of the time because she's too overprotective of me because of my condition, my mild cerebral palsy. Stress is a killer, and I don't want my grandma to die anytime soon. I want her stick around at least for a while. At least long enough to see me become a successful writer and maybe a filmmaker (not to make this about me or anything), or at least an online content creator (a reviewer), and to see her new great grandson, my nephew go to kindergarten or even 1st grade. Who knows? My cousin and his girlfriend have a second child on the way, so I'm going to have another nephew or a niece. No body knows what the gender of their next baby will be. All the women ♀︎ in my family are hoping it's a girl ♀︎, but I'll accept it either way if it's a boy ♂︎ or a girl ♀︎. I'll still love them regardless. 

 

So even though I had finished my post on Eternal Darkness, I couldn't watch Colony (2026) and start work on the review until today. Or yesterday since it's 12:22 AM when I'm writing this part, and it's already Wednesday October 21, 2026. So even though I started this on Tuesday October 20, 2026, I'm continuing to write it the next day, which is now today. Hopefully it doesn't take me a whole week to write this 😒. I still want to review Annihilation (2018) before the end of the month since I own it on 4K and Blu-Ray 💿. Hopefully my room gets put together, and my PS5 gets set up long enough for me to watch it on 4K 💿, but if all else fails, I'll watch the regular Blu-Ray 💿. The review comes first, before format or picture quality. Besides 1080p HD is still good picture quality. It's still better than either 360p SD or 480p SD. I don't necessarily need to see every single little detail, every little pore on a person's face.  

 

For those of you who don't know Colony (2026) is, and I'm sure if you're reading this from the United States 🇺🇸, that's probably a lot of you, it's a South Korean zombie movie 🇰🇷🧟‍♂️ directed by Yeon Sang-ho, the director of the Train to Busan 🚊 movies, even the animated prequel, Seoul Station 🚉. He's not directing the American remake 🇺🇸 of Train of Busan 🚊 however, The Last Train to New York 🚊, that one's being directed by Timo Tjahjanto, the director of The Night Comes for Us, which I already reviewed on this blog, Nobody 2, and The Beekeeper 2 🐝, which just recently had its first trailer come out. It looks awesome! I really hope I can see that one when it comes out in theaters in January 😁. The jury's still out on whether or not Sang-ho is directing the so far untitled Peninsula sequel, which was in and of itself a sequel to Train to Busan 🚊 and is apart of the Train to Busan 🚊 series, but he is certainly writing the script and has some creative control over it. So this is his first non-Train to Busan 🚊 zombie movie 🧟‍♂️ since making it big with Train to Busan 🚊. Though I'm sure some Train to Busan 🧟‍♂️ try to argue that it is somehow connected to the Train to Busan 🧟‍♂️ series despite all evidence to the contrary 😒. 

 

It is kind of funny thought that I watched this before before Train to Busan 🚊, but it is what it is. The basic plot of Colony (2026) is that this seemingly disgruntled, or perhaps even crazed young scientist 👨‍🔬 named Seo Young-chul suddenly out of nowhere launches a bioterrorist attack on this building called the Dongwoo-ri building which is hosting this company he used to work for, Chains Bio as well as a shopping mall. Like, Chains Bio is a tenant of this building, and they're leasing space, and there's also a shopping mall in the building. He launches his attack on the day Chains Bio is hosting an event demonstrating the capabilities of slime mold based biotechnology, and infects everyone with this slime mold based weapon that of course turns everyone into zombies 🧟‍♂️. Very weird zombies 🧟‍♂️ that evolve overtime, starting out running on all fours before learning to walk and run upright, can the ability to read, use weapons, mimic humans, and even talk, though very limited. 

 

It's not like the zombies 🧟‍♂️ can talk in complete sentences or hold a conversation. They also all do this thing when they learn new information or "evolve," where they all look up at the air and open their mouth really wide, being in a sort of trance like state. Just like how you see on the poster on top that I used as the cover image for this review. Oh, and they all ooze white stuff out of every orifice, which I guess is supposed to be the slime mold coming out of them, but it either looks like they're covered in milk 🥛 or semen. The whole building gets covered in the slime mold, every room and every hallway where the zombies 🧟‍♂️ are. While Young-chul has injected himself 💉 with the only known vaccine to the slime mold bioweapon, and is seemingly immune to the effects of the slime mold infection. 

 

And the movie mainly follows a group of survivors who trapped in the shopping mall part of the building, lead by a disgraced professor, Kwon Se-jeong and her ex-husband, Han Gyu-sung. Though the movie does cut back to the outside, showing the authorities' attempts to deal with the situation as well as showing the growing public discontent with the authorities' attempts to deal with the situation, and demanding that they either rescue their loved ones or cure them if they've been turned. Especially when the entire country catches wind that Young-chul has the vaccine 💉 inside of his body, so the South Korean government and police 🇰🇷's main goal throughout this movie is to secure Young-chul and bring him out of the building, so that they can extract the vaccine 💉 from his body so that they vaccinate the entire South Korean public 🇰🇷 from the slim mold weapon that he created. Though of course, this proves to be a lot more difficult than they imagined. 

 

Not just because of the zombies 🧟‍♂️, which are never called zombies 🧟‍♂️ throughout the entire movie (this is one of those zombie movies 🧟‍♂️ where they don't call them "zombies 🧟‍♂️" 😒), but because of Young-chul himself because in addition to being immune to effects of the slime mold infection, he also controls the zombies 🧟‍♂️ through some kind of hive mind. That's why the movie's called Colony (2026) because the zombies 🧟‍♂️ in this are eusocial and have formed a colony just like an ant colony 🐜 (an analogy the movie makes itself), and all share one mind, Young-chul's. Meaning he has an entire zombie army 🧟‍♂️ at his beck and call. Making it very difficult to even get near him, let alone touch him since he'll just summon a bunch of zombies 🧟‍♂️ to come to his aid. 

 

If this movie were set in America 🇺🇸 instead of South Korea 🇰🇷, it would've had a whole subplot about the US military 🇺🇸 trying to capture him so that they can study him and weaponize his ability to control the zombies 🧟‍♂️ and create entire zombie armies 🧟‍♂️ and control them using the same hive mind ability as Young-chul in this movie. It'd probably be a better way to create a zombie army 🧟‍♂️ than what the military tried to do in Army of the Dead 🧟‍♂️🎰. I mean, the US military 🇺🇸 does have a presence in South Korea 🇰🇷, they have bases there, and they help the South Korean military 🇰🇷, mainly to help deter North Korea 🇰🇵 and guard the demilitarized zone (DMZ). So, if Sang-ho wanted to include a subplot involving the US 🇺🇸 trying to capture Young-chul under the guise of wanting to secure the vaccine 💉 in his bloodstream 🩸, so they can weaponize the zombies 🧟‍♂️ and the zombie hive mind 🧟‍♂️, and create their own zombie army 🧟‍♂️ to use in whatever war they find themselves fighting in, he easily could've and it still would've made sense. 

 

But no, Sang-ho wanted to tell a purely South Korean story 🇰🇷 that only involved South Koreans 🇰🇷 and made it seem like South Korea 🇰🇷 was on its own, and didn't want to include America 🇺🇸 or Americans 🇺🇸. Even though South Korean genre films 🇰🇷 have acknowledged America 🇺🇸's presence in the country, like Bong Joon Ho's The Host (2006). America 🇺🇸 and its presence in the country was integral to that movie's plot and message since it was heavily inspired by a real life incident in which toxic chemicals ☣️ were dumped into the sink, which led directly into the Han River and contaminated the river by order of an American civilian 🇺🇸 working for the US military 🇺🇸 named Albert L. McFarland. 

 

It was called the McFarland incident, and it was a massive scandal in South Korea 🇰🇷, and Bong Joon Ho decided to make a monster movie based off it. Just as Tomoyuki Tanaka decided to make a monster movie based off the Lucky Dragon No. 5 incident, in which a Japanese fishing boat 🇯🇵 was irradiated by the fallout from the Castle Bravo nuclear test ☢️, and that's how we got Godzilla (1954). Bong Joon Ho was essentially trying to create the Godzilla for South Korea 🇰🇷. A better Godzilla for South Korea 🇰🇷 than Yongary/Yonggary. He even used the same exact chemical ☣️ that was used in the McFarland incident, formaldehyde. Just in case any South Koreans 🇰🇷 didn't get what the movie was inspired by. No Americans 🇺🇸 would actually catch onto this because the McFarland incident didn't make the news in the United States 🇺🇸. 

 

Hardly anyone in the US 🇺🇸 knew about that incident, and whenever you brought it up, they had no idea what you were talking about, and they were genuinely shocked and appalled once you explained it to them what happened. I didn't know about it until I watched The Host (2006) and dug into more of its behind-the-scenes history. I think even one of the reviews of the movie at the time of its release in the US 🇺🇸 mentioned that it was inspired by this incident, I think it was Richard Roeper. I don't remember, it's been so long. But for me, I have more of an excuse for not knowing about the incident until I saw that movie because it happened in the year 2000, and I was still very much a baby in 2000. I was born in 1998, and I was barely 1 or 2 years old by then, and as with most people, I really don't have any memories from when I was that young. So, I wouldn't have known, I wasn't cognizant of things like that back then when I was that young. I don't even have memories of 9/11 even though I was very much alive when it happened, it just happened when I was so young. 

 

It is funny that The Host (2006) is the one Bong Joon Ho movie and the one South Korean movie 🇰🇷 that I'm aware of that actually acknowledges the US presence 🇺🇸 in the country, when it's the one Bong Joon Ho movie that no one really knows about or talks about anymore. Besides maybe Memories of Murder 🔍 (2003). It got completely overshadowed by his other movies like Snowpiercer ❄️, which features mainly American and British actors 🇺🇸🇬🇧, Parasite (2019), his most famous movie, and Mickey 17, which also mainly features American and British actors 🇺🇸🇬🇧. Mickey 17 is his second predominantly English speaking film since Snowpiercer ❄️. But The Host (2006) will always be my Bong Joon Ho movie, it was the first one of his movies I ever watched, and so far is the only movie of his that I've watched. I added a few of his other movies to my list of things to review, like Memories of Murder 🔍 (2003), Snowpiercer ❄️, and Mickey 17, but I haven't watched any of them yet. And even when I do, The Host (2006) will always still hold a special place in my heart ❤️, even if no one else acknowledges it. 

 

So, the movie's a bit more like a Dawn of the Dead 🧟‍♂️ type zombie movie 🧟‍♂️, where it's mostly confined to one location. In fact it pretty much is Dawn of the Dead 🧟‍♂️. It's a South Korean version of Dawn of the Dead 🧟‍♂️ 🇰🇷 because it literally takes place in a mall just like both versions of that movie do. Only unlike either of the two Dawn of the Dead 🧟‍♂️ movies, the world hasn't completely ended and there is still a world to go back to, and we see a lot more of the outside, and a lot more of the authorities trying, and for the most part failing, to deal with the situation. In that way, it's kind of like Die Hard, the very first Die Hard movie, which I haven't seen, but I've heard a lot about. I've seen so many reviews and reactions to that movie that I pretty know the entire plot of that movie inside and out. 

 

It's Dawn of the Dead 🧟‍♂️ mixed with Die Hard mixed with Resident Evil because of the infection being a slime mold and it being used as a bioweapon as well as a way to evolve humans and turn them into something else, and the main villain has a god complex and is able to control the zombies 🧟‍♂️. Though to a much greater degree than in any of the Resident Evil games, or the animated movies or miniseries. And I guess it's all kind of like The Last of Us because the zombie infection 🧟‍♂️ is caused by a fungus rather than a virus 🦠, or a bacteria, or even a parasite. Slime molds are fungi if you didn't know. Only again, there's no apocalypse, there's still a world left when all of this is said and done. The whole building is quarantined after all. 

 

The reason why I chose this movie is because I saw the trailer, and it looked pretty good, it looked really cool. It looked like it could an interesting and unique take on the zombie genre 🧟‍♂️. And I became more interested in seeing in after I learned it was directed by Yeon Sang-ho, the director of the Train to Busan 🚊 movies, and I've heard pretty much nothing but great things about those movies, especially the first one, Train to Busan 🚊. People laud that movie as if its a masterpiece. I've never said, I cannot confirm or deny whether or not any of that praise is warranted or not. I had also watched We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️, the Australian zombie movie 🇦🇺🧟‍♂️ that premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival in 2025 and was released in the United States 🇺🇸 in January of this year, and I was hoping that this would be a lot better because I reviewed We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️ earlier this month and I didn't like it very much. 

 

I thought it was a huge letdown, and pretty underwhelming for what it was. I was with it for like 98% of it, I was willing to see it through to the end and see where it was going, only for it to go no where, or at least no where interesting or good. We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️ has one of the worst endings I've seen in a long time, I hated that movie's ending, and if you read my review you'll know exactly what I'm talking. It's only if you read my review since hardly anyone even saw that movie or talked about it when it came out, either in the United States 🇺🇸 or Australia 🇦🇺, and don't even know it even exists. But man, between this, The Marsh King's Daughter, Chaos Walking, and Cleaner, Daisy Ridley hasn't been picking the best movies to be in after being in Star Wars. I'm not holding out much hope for that Christmas Carol 🎄 movie she's in with Johnny Depp, Ebenezer. She's a good actress, she can act, and she's very hot 😍 at least in my opinion, she just needs to choose better projects to be in, goddamn. She needs to fire her agent. 

 

Needless to say, my expectations for this movie were pretty high. So, was this movie better than We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️? Yes. For one thing, things are actually happening and it delivers a lot more of the zombie action 🧟‍♂️ that you've come to expect from these kinds of movies, only the humans don't actually start killing zombies 🧟‍♂️ until the last third of the movie. For most of it, it's people running away or hiding from zombies 🧟‍♂️ rather fighting them head on. Not even the SWAT team that we saw in the trailer go into the building until the last third of the movie because for most of the movie, the South Korean government and police 🇰🇷 don't actually want to kill any of the zombies 🧟‍♂️ just on the slim chance that they could be cured. Until Gyu-sung's current wife, Gong Seol-hee confirms that the people infected are already dead (she specifically says "brain dead 🧠") and there's no hope of ever curing them, so it's okay to kill them. But, I didn't like it nearly as much as I was hoping I would. I wanted to like this so much more than I ended up. 

 

The movie has good qualities, I think the action is pretty good. I do like the concepts surrounding the movie and the zombies 🧟‍♂️. The zombie makeup is pretty good, and the acting from all the extras playing the zombies 🧟‍♂️ was also pretty good. They really felt like feral beasts that were quickly becoming more and more intelligent as the movie went on. I think the idea of having the zombie infection 🧟‍♂️ be caused by a slime mold was a pretty cool touch, and helps it stand out from the myriad of other zombie movies 🧟‍♂️, and I've never seen a zombie movie 🧟‍♂️ where the zombies 🧟‍♂️ had a hive mind and were all controlled by one person ☝️, and we had a solid main human villain where they didn't just unleash the zombies 🧟‍♂️ onto the human populace, but also directly control them, and share a mind with them. Even if they are kind of the vampires from Sinners (2025). Even in the way the hive mind works is very similar to how the vampire hive mind worked in Sinners (2025). 

 

Like Young-chul is pretty much like Remmick while the zombies 🧟‍♂️ are like the vampires that he turned. They even have a moment where the zombies 🧟‍♂️ repeat in unison what Young-chul is saying just like the vampires repeated what Remmick was saying in unison. when he was reciting that prayer that Sammie was saying when he caught up to him in the lake outside the junk joint. And just like how the vampire felt Remmick's pain, the zombies 🧟‍♂️ in this movie feel Young-chul's pain when he's burning alive 🔥. Though, in this movie, it's not so much that they feel his pain, and more like they're repeating his moments when he's flailing around, dying. It's like Sang-ho watched Sinners (2025) and was like, "I can do that, but with zombies 🧟‍♂️." 

 

This movie is similar to We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️ in that they both try to do something different with the zombie genre 🧟‍♂️ that hasn't done before. When you have a genre that's as been done to death (no pun intended) as the zombie genre 🧟‍♂️, you kind of have to try something new to stand out, and to keep the genre fresh and prevent it from getting stale. Even though it arguably has gotten stale. That's why you don't see nearly as many zombie movies 🧟‍♂️ as you did in the 2000s or the early-to-mid 2010s, the genre kind of died out, and now only get a few zombie movies 🧟‍♂️ ever once in a while. With most of them coming from other countries, mainly South Korea 🇰🇷 and mainly from this director, Sang-ho. He's pretty much the George Romero of South Korea 🇰🇷 now with how many zombie movies 🧟‍♂️ he's made. No one is as associated with genre in South Korea 🇰🇷 as him. He's the "zombie guy 🧟‍♂️♂︎" pretty much.  

 

We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️ did this by doing something completely out of the norm for the zombie genre 🧟‍♂️ and basically doing a drama, where the zombies 🧟‍♂️ are mostly a none threat. There are only a few scenes where the zombies 🧟‍♂️ are actually a threat and actually try to kill people. They're not even an infection, the zombies 🧟‍♂️ don't infect people and turn them into zombies 🧟‍♂️, and it doesn't spread outside the island, Tasmania. The issue of the zombie infection 🧟‍♂️ spreading outside of Tasmania and starting a zombie apocalypse 🧟‍♂️ never comes up because the zombies 🧟‍♂️ in that movie are not contagious and they can't turn regular humans into zombies 🧟‍♂️. We never even see any of them bite anyone or eat anyone, there's not the usual cannibalistic aspect of zombies 🧟‍♂️ how they're undead humans who eat living humans. None of that is present in that movie. 

 

Whatever zombies 🧟‍♂️ are there on the island are all that's in existence, and they can't make anymore. It does make sense in the context of that movie's plot why that's the case since the zombies 🧟‍♂️ in that movie are the result of an EMP emitted by an experimental superweapon that was accidentally detonated right next to Tasmania by the US military 🇺🇸, rather than by some pathogen. While this movie mostly uses the usual zombie formula 🧟‍♂️, it's a lot more of a traditional zombie movie 🧟‍♂️ than We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️ is, but made the zombies 🧟‍♂️ different by having them be the result of a mutated slime mold and having them have a hive mind controlled by one person ☝️. 

 

This movie is actually pretty big and very ambitious with the ideas it tries to tackle here about human evolution and interconnectivity. It's something that works in the movie's favor and is also to its detriment, which brings me to my criticisms towards the movie. The movie just has too many flaws that prevent me from fully liking it and saying that it's a good movie or a great movie like all the critics seem to have, and wholeheartedly recommending it to anyone. The movie's too long and it's too stuffed with too much stuff. This movie is over 123 minutes long, or 2 hours and 2 minutes long, and for a movie that's primarily set in one location ☝️ and has as simple of a premise as this does, despite the deeper themes about human evolution and interconnectivity, that's way too long. 2 hour runtimes have pretty much become the standard for a lot of movies nowadays, especially bigger high profile movies that a lot of people are expected to go see, like this one for instance, but most of the time, it's not needed. 

 

You don't always need a 2 hour or longer runtime to tell a good story. There's nothing wrong with making a movie that's under 2 hours, that's an hour long. Like 98 minutes would've been perfect for a movie like this, maybe even 105 minutes if you really wanted to push it. But anything longer than that is too much. A lot of these movies that are over 2 hours long feel like they overstay their welcome, and unfortunately this movie is one of them. It got to a point where I felt like it going on for too long, and it just kept going and going and it wouldn't end. Like, once Young-chul escaped from the building and the infection started spreading, I was like, "alright, let's wrap this up already 😒." I never once felt like this justified its runtime, in fact, everything it did made me think that this movie could have been a lot shorter than it was. I've gotten to a point in my life where I kind of just prefer shorter movies, like movies that an hour and half long at most, rather than movies that 2 and a half hours long, or even 3 or 4 hours long. I appreciate a movie that uses its time efficiently and doesn't waste your time, or make you feel like you did 

 

And the only reason why this movie is so long is that they made the plot overly complicated. They kept adding more and complexity to the plot, and having more and more things happen. Like, every time Young-chul gets captured in this movie, he somehow finds a way to escape, and they just keep doing that to extend the movie's runtime. And the movie's weightier themes also contribute to this complexity, which is what I meant when i said that these themes were to the movie's benefit and detriment. They work in helping the movie stand out, but they also don't work because they make the movie feel more complicated than it needs to be, and it makes the movie feel a bit pretentious. It's like Sang-ho knew how simplistic the movie's plot was and he didn't think it could sustain a 2 hour movie, so he crammed all of these excess complexity to compensate for it, to make the movie seem more complicated than it actually is or needed to be. 

 

He also added all kinds of subplots to mainly pad out the runtime and make the movie seem more dense and meatier than it actually is. You don't just focus on the characters inside the building trying to escape and also trying to find Young-chul to use him as leverage to get a rescue team sent to the building to rescue them, but you also got the subplot involving Seol-hee as she joins the investigation into Young-chul and his research and trying to find a solution to the zombie outbreak 🧟‍♂️ before they break out of the building and the infection spreads to the outside world. She's the one that ultimately finds the solution by telling Se-jeong to kill Young-chul because he tested the slime mold weapon on a bunch of monkeys 🐒 (actual monkeys 🐒 not apes 🦍🦧 despite people often referred to apes as monkeys 🐒, which is wrong 😠) and when the control monkey 🐒 was killed (Monkey #1 🐒), all the other monkeys 🐒 just froze and stopped moving, as if it they entered some kind of catatonic state. 

 

So she does, and that stops the zombies 🧟‍♂️ in their tracks, but it doesn't actually kill them, it just puts them into some kind of state of suspended animation, because the movie does a bullshit cliffhanger ending, or sequel bait ending, or I guess fakeout ending where it's revealed the zombies 🧟‍♂️ are still very much alive, and they will reawaken to cause havoc. And now they've just killed the only guy ♂︎ who had the vaccine 💉 inside of his body, so there's no way to vaccinate anyone against it. Oops 😑. Would've been better off just bombing that building with Young-chul and all the zombies 🧟‍♂️ inside with an airstrike. Like the US military 🇺🇸 did to Madison Square Garden to keep the Baby Godzillas from escaping in Godzilla (1998). Have to leave the door open for a sequel I guess 🙄, even though this movie really doesn't need one. I feel like a sequel would just ruin it and make it worse. If Sang-ho ever does make a sequel to this, I won't watch it 😒. Watching this makes wonder if I should even bother watching the Train to Busan 🚊 movies, or if I should just delete them from my list of things to review. 

 

Not only that, but the movie has way too many characters. People complain about Roland Emmerich's movies for being too long and having too many characters, but for some reason this movie gets a pass. Every characters is given an introduction, like we have to cut to each character so we can see their "short" introductory scenes. These intro scenes may be short, but they add up, and there are a lot of them. And it's hard to keep track of a lot of the characters. I didn't know most of their names. This movie could've used a much smaller cast. It's better to have a smaller cast of a few characters that you really get to know than a larger cast of a bajillion characters that you don't really get to know because there's not enough time for all of them. I didn't really most of the characters, there are only a few I kind of liked. I didn't like them that much, but I liked them a lot more than the others. At least one of them I straight up hated, and it wasn't any of the the ones you were supposed to hate either. And most of them end of dying anyway, so there's not really much of a reason to care about any of them. The only reason why this movie has such a big cast and has so many characters is so that the movie can have a huge body count, and we see characters either get eaten by zombies 🧟‍♂️ or turned into zombies 🧟‍♂️. 

It largely just feels like Sang-ho is repeating himself from Train to Busan 🚊. From what little I actually know about that movie, it seems like Sang-ho is just reusing a lot of the same character dynamics and character archetypes than he used in that movie. Where it's a large group of people who didn't know each other prior to the zombie outbreak 🧟‍♂️ and now have to rely on each other to survive, though many of them still butt heads and are at odds with each other. Even to the down to the fact that this movie is includes a businessman character (a guy ♂︎ in a suit and tie) that's just being rude and an asshole to every body, and then becomes actual problem for them later on that puts them all in danger. Only for him to get his comeuppance and die. In this case, the asshole businessman gets turned into a zombie 🧟‍♂️ along with the asshole cop who doesn't care about anybody and only cares about getting Young-chul out of the building so that the authorities on the outside can extract the vaccine 💉 from his body. 

 

They even do this thing where the brother of the mobility-impaired woman ♀︎ tries to kill Young-chul and everyone else still left in the group as revenge for letting his sister die. Even though she was the one who told him to leave her behind and let her die, but sure, blame everyone else 🙄. So that become a whole subplot that we have to follow, until it ends pretty anticlimactically with the sister shows up, having already been turned into a zombie 🧟‍♀️, and kills the brother. Although she doesn't bite him, or turn him into a zombie 🧟‍♂️. She stabs him with his own knife 🔪, which he got from a kitchen inside the building. I don't know why, but for some reason, when the sister got turned, she doesn't particularly feral, or monstrous, she doesn't act like the other zombies 🧟‍♂️. 

 

They kind of imply that she has some degree of consciousness left, and she choose to kill her brother by stabbing him to spare him from the misery of being a zombie 🧟‍♀️ like her and being under the control of Young-chul. Whatever the case, it was kind of a pointless subplot that went no where, and it just made me hate the brother and make me want to see him die, which he does. But not in the way I was hoping. I was hoping with Se-jeong would kill him, or he would just get eaten by zombies 🧟‍♂️. Either one of those would've been a better death for that character than what they gave him. 

 

But, you know me, I like Asian women ♀︎. I made this very clear in my Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 1 review. I don't just like Asian women ♀︎, it's not as if I only like Asian women ♀︎ and no other kind of women ♀︎. I'm open to all kinds of different women ♀︎. But, I do definitely like me some Asians, I would be lying if I said I didn't. And given that this was a South Korean production 🇰🇷, it meant that there are a lot of Asian women ♀︎ on screen. In this case, Korean woman 🇰🇷♀︎. And indeed, there are some actually top tier ladies ♀︎ in this movie, at least in the looks department. I may not like some of their characters (most of their characters actually), in terms of their personality or role in the story, but I like how they look. They all look pretty sexy 😍 in my opinion. I do fully intend on reviewing Monarch Season 2 BTW, next month in November. Hopefully, I'll have enough free time to do it, and hopefully I'll get to do my Annihilation (2018) review before the end of October, and I won't have to do it in November. Because it's the perfect movie to close off spooky season with. 

 

 

 

(This is the other English poster for Colony (2026). I actually think this is a pretty cool poster. I just wish that it was a lot bigger. It's only 1,382 x 2,048, whereas the poster I used for the cover was 2,024 x 3,000. If it was as big as the poster I used fro the cover image, it would be perfect 👌.)