Saw Colony by Yeon Sang-ho
I quite enjoyed Train to Busan when it came out, so I was excited to watch Yeon Sang-ho's new zombie movie, Colony. Here is the trailer:
Off the bat I'll just say that this doesn't really hold a candle to Train to Busan, and I'd probably recommend it mainly to people who love zombie films or love Korean zombie movies in particular. It's got a ton of creative zombie twists and "mechanics" and remains surprising throughout, but it puts way more energy into the zombie half of the movie than the human half. The zombies in this film required a bit of "tutorialization," and the movie strives to achieve perfect clarity on the zombie mechanics so that you can decipher twists in the third act. It's very clearly sacrificing some of the characters (and their relationships) in order to achieve this clarity.
I spent some time after this thinking about that inherent tension in the zombie subgenre. Creators really, really want their zombies to feel "unique," and for the zombie abilities to present fun hooks for character peril. But in the search for those hooks, storytellers in games and movies are frequently turning to the same animal metaphors - ants, bees, animals with hive or pack behavior and hierarchy, etc. I'll spoil a bit and say that Colony draws from ants and from slime mold, which is definitely pretty unusual.
However, I think the story over-tutorializes some of this stuff... and also overpacks its cast with people so that it can kill them off consistently throughout the story. I found myself missing the straight-ahead simplicity of Train to Busan's zombies! I did enjoy the villain, however. There's maybe too many people in the cast, and they're all fighting for attention with the bad guy, who gets much more time in front of the camera than any of them. It leaves the film feeling extremely uncharismatic. I was much more interested in the zombies than in any of the people.
Anyway, I gave this one three out of five stars on Letterboxd. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't know how strongly I'd really recommend it to anyone. I was extremely impressed (as I usually am in these films) by the physical acting of the zombie cast, which is very acrobatic and avoids special effects grotesquerie in favor of just... showing people jumping and sliding and doing weird zombie breakdancing on the ground while covered in slimy goo.
I'm satisfied! I saw plenty of unique goo-lubricated breakdancing moves. My curiosity about Yeon Sang-ho's career is satisfied. Maybe I should just re-watch Train to Busan!