Director Yeon Sang-ho's 'Gunche' (Colony) Stars Jun Ji-hyun, Evolutionary K-Zombies

Director Yeon Sang-ho is set to transform the zombie genre with his upcoming film Gunche (also known as Colony or Hive). The film features survivors trapped in a blockaded building battling infected individuals who evolve in real-time and operate with a collective intelligence to hunt targets strategically.

Key Facts

• Survivors isolated in a building must fight a mysterious infection causing unpredictable host evolution.
• Unlike conventional zombies that react primarily to sound, these infected move as a single mass and "update" behavioral patterns at each stage of development.
• The creatures function with a collective intelligence similar to AI, capable of learning and information sharing rather than mindless rushing.
• To achieve abstract "avant-garde" swarm movements, the production employed three modern dance teams, break dancers, and stuntmen.
• The infected move as a single organism around a central figure, Seo Young-cheol (played by Koo Kyo-hwan), mimicking bees serving a queen.
• The narrative explores a thematic contrast: the infected evolve through collective thinking while human survivors regress toward barbarism.
• Actress Jun Ji-hyun stars as Kwon Se-jeong, describing the infected as a networked mass distinct from the uncontrolled behavior seen in traditional zombie media.

Key Terms

• Gunche (Hive/Colony): A term for a collective that acts as a single organism by gathering individuals into a single network.
• Update: A phenomenon where the infected simultaneously share information to evolve into a higher threat level.

Key Quote

"Peninsula is closer to an action movie mixed with fast action and car chasing. Hive has a color closer to a suspense thriller. Train to Busan and Peninsula were largely combinations of classic zombies and exotic locations. Hive focuses on the zombie itself. In a way, it is almost the first movie I've made where a zombie is the protagonist." — Yeon Sang-ho, Director