Korean filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho has been busy over the past few years. In addition to directing zombie thriller Colony – which premiered in Midnight Screenings here in Cannes – he directed two other movies last year, The Ugly and Revelations, and was a showrunner on a Japanese series that will soon drop on Netflix. 

Colony, which Korean studio Showbox has already sold to more than 124 territories, is part of a long-overdue return to Cannes official selection for Korean cinema – along with Na Hong-jin’s Hope in competition and July Jung’s Dora in Directors Fortnight. 

The film stars Gianna Jun (Kingdom: Ashin Of The North) as a professor attending a biotech conference when a viral outbreak starts transforming the attendees into Yeon’s trademark fast-moving zombies. However, in a departure from Yeon’s previous films, the infected can share information, operating with a hive mind that enables them to collectively track down fresh victims, rather than shuffling around aimlessly. Go Soo (The Fortress), Ji Chang-wook (Revolver), Kim Shin-rock (Hellbound) and Koo Kyo-hwan (Parasyte: The Grey) also head the ensemble cast. 

Although Yeon started his career working in animation, he says he used minimal CGI to create his new generation zombies, instead relying on physical movements and special effects. “I have nothing against CGI and used it heavily in Hellbound and Parasyte: The Grey, but for this movie I only wanted to use it at the end to create the greatest number of zombies,” says Yeon, sitting down with Deadline in Cannes. “For most of the movie, we relied on choreographers, dancers, a stunt team and of course also the actors. We had some of the best contemporary dancers in Korea working on the film.” 

By the same token, Yeon says he also didn’t use any AI technology while making the film, although he’s open to seeing what it can do in the future. He also feels that the story of Colony indirectly touches on this (currently contentious) topic because the idea of a collective hive mind is one of the biggest fears that humans have about AI.

“I was wondering what the greatest fear of our time is, and I think it’s the extreme high-speed exchange of communication, because technology is now connecting all of our thoughts and AI is only going to accelerate that process,” says Yeon. “If we try to define AI, it’s a kind of sum or universality of thought, and it’s developing very rapidly, but to the detriment of the originality or individuality of people.”

He also feels that AI is making us, once again, question what art is; recalling his experiences as a Fine Arts student, when Marcel Duchamp’s The Fountain (an artwork consisting of a porcelain urinal) sparked a debate over whether a readymade object can be classed as art. 

“The world of cinema is very concerned with this question now. AI is generating new images, but the sum of these images is universal, and what defines art is originality, something that is personal to the artist or the individual, not universality. But at the same time, the big debate in fine arts over The Fountain ended up enriching the industry of art, so I think we’re at a similar crossroads now.”

Not surprisingly in such a high-tech nation, South Korea’s film industry has already started embracing AI filmmaking – CJ ENM recently released AI-human hybrid feature The House in cinemas – but ironically it’s been good old-fashioned human movies that have recently revived Korean cinema at the local box office following a prolonged slump, not technical wizardry. Showbox, the studio behind Colony, recently had a massive box office hit with historical drama The King’s Warden, which has pulled in $108M to become the highest-grossing Korean film of all time. 

Yeon has famously worked across both theatrical and streaming content. His earlier zombie films – Train To Busan and Peninsula – were big hits in Korea and across the region. But he also directed the movie Revelations for Netflix, along with series Hellbound and Parasyte: The Grey, the latter an adaptation of a popular Japanese horror manga. 

“A lot of people said Korean cinema was going through a crisis, but I never thought of it that way, I just thought it was going through a transformation,” says Yeon, who last year also directed mystery thriller The Ugly, which was released in cinemas partly as an experiment to see if low-budget filmmaking was a solution for Korean cinema. 

“Streaming grew very quickly in Korea, especially during Covid, and then we had a situation where young people were watching short clips and had a hard time enjoying long-form content. 

“But now we have the phenomenon where young people have started going back to the movie theatres,” Yeon continues. “Another interesting trend is the rise in popularity of GVs [guest visits]; in-person question and answer sessions with the director and other talents after the movie has screened. It started at film festivals, but we’re now seeing a lot of this during a film’s theatrical release – audiences are demanding a lot of GVs.”

Of course, Colony will have no problem reaching theatres. Following its Cannes premiere, the film will receive its North American premiere as the opening film of New York Asian Film Festival, ahead of a North American theatrical release. But Yeon says he’s also interested in working with international collaborators to make content that can travel, either theatrically or on streaming platforms. 

Wow Point, the Seoul-based production company that Yeon founded with producer Yoomin Hailey Yang, is developing a slate of projects with international partners, some of which he will direct, while on others he will serve as producer or writer. These include sci-fi crime thriller Human Vapor, based on a 1960 tokusatsu, directed by Shinzo Katayama and written and executive produced by Yeon. A co-production between Wow Point and Japan’s Toho Studios, the series will stream on Netflix from July 2. 

“With Human Vapor, I was really attracted by the theme and the setting in Japan,” says Yeon. “We talked a lot with the Japanese director and producer and about the differences in the ways that Japanese and Korean audiences receive information. It was a refreshing experience and I’m really looking forward to working on more projects like this.” 

He says that Alfonso Cuaron, who works between Mexico and Hollywood, had a similar experience when he came on board Revelations as an executive producer: “He said it was interesting to learn about the cultural differences. It’s a story set in Korea but his viewpoint is very much reflected in the movie. So I think its always an enriching experience to work with foreign artists.” 

As for other foreign filmmakers Yeon would like to work with – he drops one name that will have genre fans drooling: “Indonesia’s Joko Anwar is one director that I would love to work with one day.” 

Colony is produced by Wow Point, Smilegate, Midnight Studio and Showbox, which is handling international sales. The film plays at NYAFF along with a 4K restoration of Train To Busan, both of which are being released theatrically by WellGo USA following the festival. Train To Busan will open August 14, followed by Colony on August 28.