“Train to Busan” showed that humans cannot escape from the infected. “Colony” shows that they can’t be outwitted.

Director Yeon Sang-ho returns to the zombie genre with his third live-action thriller, “Colony,” expanding the “Yeoniverse,” the cinematic universe he built through his genre-defining horror films. The South Korean film marks the long-awaited return of Gianna Jun (aka Jun Ji-hyun) to the big screen after 11 years alongside Koo Kyo-hwan and Ji Chang-wook.

“Colony,” which premiered in North America as the opening night film of the 25th New York Asian Film Festival and hits U.S. theaters on August 28 through Well Go USA, follows Kwon Se-jeong, played by Gianna, an unemployed biotechnology professor who becomes trapped inside a high-rise building after a rapidly mutating virus breaks out. The survivors must escape as the infected evolve into something more intelligent and dangerous than ordinary zombies.

In fact, the zombies in “Colony” are unlike anything audiences have seen before in Yeon. Instead of standard reanimated corpses, the infected are connected by a collective intelligence, allowing them to learn, adapt, and coordinate as one. When a zombie evolves, the entire party evolves with it.

“The hardest part,” Yeon explains. Variety“It was figuring out how to visually express zombies existing as a colony with collective intelligence. To convey that intuitively to the audience, the movement of the zombies had to be unique.” In “Train to Busan,” he used breakdancers to choreograph the movements of the infected. “Colony” took a different approach: “This time, we hired modern dance teams that had more experience choreographing group movements in an effort to create movements that could place greater emphasis on their collective nature.”

According to Yeon, the idea of ​​a collective organism influenced his approach to the film. “I found it very interesting how, in reality, collective or colony-based organisms always produce variants or mutations. The reason for this is that, because they are a group made up of exactly the same properties, if a single weakness is discovered, the entire colony could die at once, so they constantly create variants.”

The driving force behind the film’s antagonist, Seo Young-chul (Koo Kyo-hwan), is his belief that imperfect communication is the source of all tragedy. This belief leads him to orchestrate the bioterrorist attack in the film. Yeon, however, disagrees with him.

“I think I’ve explored the question of what it means to be ‘human’ in many of my previous films,” he maintains. “In this work, I had the same concerns. What I consider ‘humanism’ in this film is individuality. In other words, I think humans have no choice but to possess individuality, and since we cannot achieve perfect communication, we are actually much more human.”

While Young-chul sees individuality as humanity’s greatest flaw, Se-jeong’s character represents his strength. While developing Se-jeong, Yeon envisioned a character who was marginalized but not someone weakened by isolation. I wanted her to be someone assertive and confident enough to choose solitude. “Kwon Se-jeong is a complex character. He has to be someone who is marginalized but also someone who is confident,” he says. “When I thought about who could express that, I naturally thought of Gianna.”

Yeon’s admiration for Gianna’s ability to play unconventional female characters dates back to the beginning of her career. “Even in her first film, ‘My Sassy Girl,’ her character was something that had never been seen before in Korean cinema,” he says. “I always considered her an actress who changed the paradigm of female characters. Since then, she has continued to change that paradigm several times through various roles and performances.”

The final scene of the film hints that the battle against the infected may not be over. Yeon admits that there are already plans for what comes next, but not in the way fans expect. Instead of teasing another film, Yeon revealed that he is currently discussing the possibility of continuing the “Colony” story. as a video game with Smilegate, the film’s co-producer and game developer.

As for the inspirations behind “Colony,” Yeon pointed to the 1978 sci-fi horror classic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” as one of the biggest influences behind the film. Other recent works that inspired him were “28 Years Later” and “The Last of Us.”

As Korean cinema continues to expand globally, Gianna was asked if she hopes to do any Hollywood projects in the future. The short answer is no. “I firmly believe that ‘what’s most Korean is what’s most global,’” he says. “Instead of looking for work abroad, I think it is more meaningful to work with great directors and actors here in Korea.”

Yeon shared a similar sentiment when asked about a possible Hollywood remake of “Train to Busan.” While he acknowledged that some efforts had been made to remake the film in English, he said he has no desire to direct one himself: “I feel like I’ve fully expressed everything I wanted to do through the original ‘Train to Busan’ film.”

Nearly a decade after “Train to Busan” changed the perception of Korean horror around the world, “Colony” suggests that the next evolution of on-screen zombies isn’t simply faster or stronger, but smarter.