Colony(2026)

Plot Summary

• Act I: The Warning and the OutbreakThe film opens with Young-cheol calling the police to announce a terrorist attack. Stating that he is about to conduct an experiment at the Doongwoori Building, he injects a mysterious viral strain into his own body via a syringe, chillingly correcting his action from an "experiment" to an act of terrorism.The scene shifts to the Chains Bio conference held inside the Doongwoori Building. Gyu-seong spots his ex-husband, Se-jeong—a brilliant but fiercely headstrong biotechnology professor—entering ten minutes late. Se-jeong nonchalantly explains that her taxi driver tried to drop her off across the street, leading to a long detour to find a U-turn zone. It is revealed that Se-jeong's uncompromising personality previously caused a clash with her university's department chair, leading to the rejection of her professor reappointment. Gyu-seong brought her to the conference to introduce her to Woo-cheol, the CEO of Chains Bio, in hopes of helping her secure a job. Se-jeong's independent nature shines through when she spots Woo-cheol and asks, "Is that the person I'm supposed to bow down to?" before they head into the hall.Meanwhile, Hyun-seok, a security guard at the building, has lunch with his older sister, Hyun-hee. While browsing a camping goods store inside the mall, Hyun-seok notices Hyun-hee's desire to go camping and promises to take her soon. As Hyun-seok's shift starts, Hyun-hee decides to explore the shopping mall alone.Back at the conference, CEO Woo-cheol presents a groundbreaking experiment based on *Physarum polycephalum* (yellow slime mold), showing a video of a paralyzed rat regaining the use of its hind legs. Spotting Young-cheol watching intently from the back of the crowd, Woo-cheol freezes momentarily before recovering his composure, jokingly concluding that science might soon create a society where people shouldn't harbor bad thoughts about others. Afterward, Gyu-seong introduces Se-jeong to Woo-cheol. Before they can speak, Woo-cheol receives a call from Bong-seok, the leader of Counter-Terrorism Team 1. Upon hearing Young-cheol's name, Woo-cheol abruptly leaves. Se-jeong, who received a mysterious handwritten invitation reading *"A tragedy caused by incomplete communication,"* suspects something is wrong after Woo-cheol denies sending it and leaves in a panic.Act II: The VIP Room ConfrontationFollowing Bong-seok's warning, Woo-cheol enters a private VIP room and confronts Young-cheol, who has snuck inside. Young-cheol accuses Woo-cheol of stealing his research and discarding him after recruiting him to the company. Woo-cheol dismisses the claim, calling Young-cheol a psychopath who wants to wipe out humanity. Young-cheol counters that it is not extinction, but the birth of a "new humanity." Woo-cheol slams Young-cheol against the wall, mocks him with double thumbs-up, and turns to leave.At that moment, Young-cheol mutters, *"Hyung, you need to connect me with the new humanity,"* and drives a pathogen-filled syringe into the back of Woo-cheol's neck. Woo-cheol manages to overpower Young-cheol, locks him inside the room by wedging a chair against the door handle, and tries to call the police. However, the infection takes hold instantly. Woo-cheol drops his phone, vomits a massive amount of white mycelium, and collapses. His bones contort grotesquely as he reanimates, brutally attacking and biting horrified bystanders in the hallway.The scene briefly shifts to a Japanese restaurant in the building where Se-jeong and Gyu-seong are dining. Se-jeong asks Gyu-seong, who is immigrating to the US the next day, why he married her. Gyu-seong confesses he fell for her reckless, headstrong nature but later couldn't handle it, calling himself a coward. As they leave, a group of high school bullies enters, pressuring a student named So-eun to pay for a massive, expensive order of sushi and sashimi.Act III: Chaos in the Shopping MallDown in the lobby, Counter-Terrorism Team Leader Bong-seok arrives with his men. Suddenly, piercing screams echo through the building. A man appears, moving grotesquely and vomiting white mycelium, followed by a literal tsunami of infected pouring out of the corridors. The counter-terrorism team requests a complete building lockdown via radio as they flee, but several officers are violently overwhelmed.Hyun-seok, returning to his post, receives a heavily static-filled radio message ordering him to evacuate the building. Screams erupt as the infected flood the 1st-floor shopping mall, triggering mass chaos. Se-jeong and Gyu-seong run with the crowd. Hyun-hee is thrown from her electric wheelchair by a charging infected, but Se-jeong, Gyu-seong, and a rushing Hyun-seok help her up and escape together.The group of survivors locks themselves inside a camping goods store. Terribly shaken by the aggressive infected pressing against the glass walls, Bong-seok accidentally bumps into a light switch. As the store goes dark, the infected instantly lose track of the survivors. Realizing the monsters rely heavily on sight and movement, Se-jeong uses her phone screen to signal the people trapped in the Japanese restaurant opposite them to turn off their lights. So-eun quickly complies, granting them a brief respite.Suddenly, a digital advertising screen on the restaurant's glass wall flashes on, showing a video of the restaurant owner. The infected immediately rush toward the screen. Hyun-hee realizes the infected cannot distinguish between real humans and media images, and suggests using her electric wheelchair topped with a life-sized cardboard standee as a decoy. Se-jeong sets up the decoy and drives the wheelchair out into the mall. The infected follow the moving wheelchair away, allowing Se-jeong to open the door and call the restaurant survivors over.They cross over one by one, led by So-eun. However, the last remaining bully girl is paralyzed by fear and retreats into the restaurant, shutting the door. Gyu-seong cautiously goes back to rescue her. Just then, an infected spots them. Gyu-seong shoves the girl toward the camping store but is chased into an outdoor apparel store, where he hides among the clothing.Act IV: Evolution and SacrificeMeanwhile, the infected attacking the wheelchair realize the standee is a fake. They stiffen their bodies, communicating the discovery to the rest of the horde. Simultaneously, an infected that had been crawling on all fours like a beast suddenly evolves, standing up on two legs, and spots Gyu-seong. Gyu-seong bolts from the store toward the camping shop, but right in front of a horrified Se-jeong, another infected ambushes him from the side. A swarm of infected descends upon Gyu-seong, tearing him apart. He becomes the first major character to fall and turn.Night falls, and TV news broadcasts the horrific events at the locked-down Doongwoori Building. The survivors call their families. Seol-hee, Gyu-seong's current wife, video-calls his phone, which Se-jeong answers. Se-jeong tearfully tells Seol-hee that Gyu-seong died saving someone. Devastated, Seol-hee hangs up as her young daughter runs up calling for her father. Meanwhile, the bully girl saved by Gyu-seong shows no remorse, continuing to torment So-eun.Bong-seok admits to the survivors that the building is completely quarantined, meaning no rescue team is coming unless they capture the terrorist, Seo Young-cheol, who holds the key to a vaccine. Se-jeong mentions she saw him in the 3rd-floor VIP room. Analyzing the infected's behavior, Se-jeong notes that they are evolving and sharing information like ants using pheromones. Citing the "ant mill" phenomenon, she proposes disrupting their communication network by masking their scents.A 60-year-old former track athlete volunteers, drenching himself in perfume to lure the infected away. The infected smell the perfume and collectively learn the false information that humans smell like perfume. After sliding through slipping infected to gather more bottles from a perfume shop, the old man narrowly returns. Se-jeong pours perfume on the store's mannequins and instructs the survivors to apply antifreeze to mask their body odors. The infected enter the store but bypass the antifreeze-covered survivors, attacking the perfumed mannequins instead. Upon realizing the trick, the infected freeze in a paralyzed state to update their collective data. Taking advantage of this, the survivors rush toward the elevator.However, the bully girl accidentally bumps into a standing infected and screams. As the horde reanimates and charges, Hyun-seok—carrying his sister on his back—fends them off with a camping staff. Se-jeong quickly uses a lighter to trigger the overhead sprinklers. The water mixes with the pathogen's mycelium, causing a massive system error in the infected's network, temporarily paralyzing them. The survivors manage to board the elevator just in time.Act V: Betrayal and SeparationArriving on the 3rd floor, the survivors enter the VIP room and find Young-cheol handcuffed. Young-cheol politely greets the group and looks at Se-jeong, revealing that triggering the sprinklers was a fatal mistake: once the water evaporates, the fungal spores will scatter into the air, accelerating the infected's communication network. This confirms Young-cheol is directly linked to the hive mind.The survivors take Young-cheol into the elevator to head to the roof. Young-cheol begins psychological mind games, mocking the old man's "nice slide" earlier—proving he can share the infected's vision, since he was locked on the 3rd floor at the time. As the elevator passes the 9th floor, Young-cheol hits the button, stopping it. Waiting infected immediately ambush the elevator. The old man, the male bully, and two restaurant staff are brutally killed. Young-cheol calmly walks away into the horde, leaving only Se-jeong, Hyun-seok, Hyun-hee, Bong-seok, a civilian, So-eun, and the bully girl alive.The remaining survivors ascend to the 30th floor, but find the roof access overrun by infected, who have chillingly learned to carry each other on their backs, mimicking Hyun-seok and Hyun-hee. Trapped, Hyun-hee suggests heading to the B2 control room to track Young-cheol via CCTV. They sneak through the devastated underground parking lot. The bully girl steps on a can, alerting the horde. So-eun quickly lifts the girl to wedge her between a Grand Starex and a Santa Fe, narrowly avoiding detection.Reaching the control room, they pull the blinds and use the CCTV to locate Young-cheol. They watch him return to the 3rd floor to purposefully let the first infected, Woo-cheol, bite him, allowing him to seize full command of the horde. Hyun-hee volunteers to stay behind in the control room to guide them through a group chat. The rest of the group navigates safely, ambush the disoriented Young-cheol, and recapture him.As they try to leave, Young-cheol emits a beastly roar to summon the horde. Se-jeong uses a necktie to blindfold Young-cheol, successfully bluffing the horde into confusion. Guided by Hyun-hee's chat messages, they head back, but Bong-seok objects to returning to the control room, callously telling Hyun-seok to abandon his sister. During the argument, Bong-seok blabs about the B2 control room out loud. Young-cheol intercepts this and orders the infected to march on B2. Furious, Hyun-seok bolts alone to save his sister.Se-jeong disarms Bong-seok at gunpoint to force the group to wait for Hyun-seok. However, Bong-seok signals the civilian, who tackles Se-jeong from behind. Bong-seok reclaims his gun, strikes Se-jeong, and forces the remaining group to move. Meanwhile, Hyun-seok calls Hyun-hee for a safe path. Surrounded by infected breaking through the glass, a tearful but calm Hyun-hee guides him. However, when Hyun-seok boards the elevator, he realizes it lacks a basement button—Hyun-hee purposely routed him to a safe exit path instead of the control room to save his life. Urging her brother to survive, Hyun-hee is overwhelmed and killed by the horde.Overcome with grief, Hyun-seok breaks down in the elevator. He posts a chilling declaration of war in the group chat: "You killed my sister. I will kill the vaccine, and none of you will leave here alive." Equipping himself with kitchen knives and makeshift armor, he begins slaughtering infected to hunt down the survivors. Reading the message, the group is horrified, while Young-cheol bursts into maniacal laughter, feeling the infected Hyun-hee's lingering sorrow. Reaching the 30th-floor VIP lounge, the survivors are trapped when Hyun-seok triggers the building's PA system to broadcast their location, drawing the horde. Bong-seok panics and fires his gun. When the civilian reminds him that he said they shouldn't kill the infected because they are "patients," Bong-seok ignores him, shoots the civilian in the leg to use him as bait, and locks himself in a room with Young-cheol.Act VI: Retribution and The PastOnce the screaming stops, Bong-seok assumes the infected have moved on and exits with Young-cheol. However, it is a trap orchestrated by Young-cheol. The infected ambush Bong-seok. Se-jeong seizes the chance to snatch Young-cheol, fleeing with So-eun and the bully girl. Out of ammo, Bong-seok fights with his baton. The bleeding civilian crawls over, grabbing Bong-seok's leg in a vengeful grip. Both are swarmed and devoured by the infected.Se-jeong's group hides in a warehouse, communicating solely through the group chat to keep Young-cheol from overhearing. Se-jeong decides to sneak out to retrieve Bong-seok's phone and contact the police commissioner. Unbeknownst to them, Young-cheol had commanded an infected to open a phone, allowing him to read their entire plan via shared vision. A nearby female infected pretends to be dead, overhears Se-jeong's call to the commissioner, and relays the tactical team's movements to Young-cheol.Inside the warehouse, the bully girl asks So-eun how she can remain so calm. So-eun replies, "Being bullied by you was more of a hell than this." The bully girl offers her first genuine apology, and So-eun hints at forgiveness. Young-cheol scoffs at them. Soon, Young-cheol manipulates the infected to mimic human voices, tricking the bully girl into opening the warehouse door under the guise of a rescue team. Infected flood in and untie Young-cheol. Cornered, the bully girl immediately throws So-eun to the monsters as bait to save herself. However, her exit is blocked. Free from his bonds, Young-cheol looks at her with disgust, saying, "Didn't you say you wanted to apologize? Do it now." He leaves her behind to be cornered and eaten by the newly turned So-eun.Young-cheol runs into Hyun-seok, who is completely drenched in blood and mycelium. Because the infected mistake Hyun-seok for one of their own, Young-cheol manually targets him through his own vision. Hyun-seok cuts down the attacking infected and corners Young-cheol. Se-jeong intervenes to stop the murder, resulting in a struggle where Hyun-seok attempts to strangle her. When Young-cheol flees, Hyun-seok pursued him. Hyun-seok corners Young-cheol again, but Young-cheol summons the zombie-turned Hyun-hee. Young-cheol mocks her disability, noting he "granted her wish" by forcing her paralyzed legs to walk—a dark callback to the conference's rat experiment. Distraught and broken, Hyun-seok drops his guard. Controlled by the hive mind, Hyun-hee takes Hyun-seok's knife and stabs him in the chest, killing the brother she died trying to protect.Young-cheol confronts Se-jeong, revealing she was his true target all along. The handwritten invitation about "incomplete communication" was sent by him to trap her. In 2004, Se-jeong worked as a researcher under Young-cheol's father. Upon discovering that he inflated research funds by adding ghost researchers to the roster, she blew the whistle. Young-cheol's father begged for a dialogue, calling it a misunderstanding, but Se-jeong coldly refused. His father was fired, hounded by the media, and subsequently committed suicide.Se-jeong screams, asking why he plunged the entire building into hell just to get revenge on her. Young-cheol counters that his father's death was merely a catalyst; his true goal is the evolution of a new human race. Before his horde can kill her, the police tactical team sweeps in, clears the infected, and apprehends Young-cheol. Trapped behind a large metal fence, Se-jeong begs a SWAT officer for help, but the officer locks eyes with her and heartlessly leaves her behind. Se-jeong narrowly escapes into a warehouse, weeping in utter despair.Act VII: The Ant Mill ClimaxAs the tactical team escorts Young-cheol to the roof, he playfully asks an officer, "Have you ever been shot before?" Right then, infected SWAT officers ambush them from across the hall, firing automatic weapons. They infect the escort team, and Young-cheol converts them into his personal armed militia.Meanwhile, Se-jeong lures the remaining infected deep into the warehouse by putting her coat on a mannequin. Recalling how the infected ignored a blood-soaked Hyun-seok, she realizes they mistake humans covered in mycelium for their own. She strips a mycelium-covered coat off a dead infected, wears it to blend into the horde, and uses Gyu-seong's phone to contact Seol-hee.On the roof, Young-cheol obliterates the remaining SWAT team, boards a tactical van with his infected soldiers, and tricks command into thinking he is being safely evacuated. Instead, he drives the van directly into the massive crowds outside the building. He unleashes his infected soldiers into the civilians and moves a police bus blocking the entrance, releasing the thousands of infected trapped inside the lobby.Stepping outside, Se-jeong finds the city in absolute ruins, with infected tearing into civilians and low-speed, automated-looking car crashes blocking roads—implying Young-cheol put infected in vehicles to spread the virus nationwide. While the government committee flees in terror, Seol-hee remains alone in a command tent, tracking Young-cheol's location via traffic CCTVs and relaying it to Se-jeong. Se-jeong flashes the high beams of an abandoned BMW to signal her position. She drives toward Young-cheol to run him down, but he orders the infected to swarm her car. She reverses rapidly to shake them off and rams her car into a GM Daewoo Tosca where Young-cheol is taking cover.With her car dead and airbags deployed, Se-jeong gets out and runs toward him. Covered in the mycelium coat, the infected hesitate to attack her. Angered, Young-cheol orders them to attack the mycelium coat itself. Se-jeong strips the coat off and throws it over an infected's head. This triggers a catastrophic loop: the entire horde rushes the covered infected, blindingly following the mycelium ahead of them, creating a massive, unending "ant mill" vortex.Panicked, Young-cheol tries to regain control, but the corrupted horde continues to sprint in a circle. Risking being trampled, Young-cheol fights his way to the center of the vortex and rips the coat off the infected. The sudden shift causes an informational overload. Like a computer rebooting, all the accumulated data and intelligence learned by the hive mind are wiped out, resetting the infected to their primitive state. The reset infected look at a boy band advertisement on the side of a Hyundai Super Aero City bus, mistaking it for real humans.Se-jeong freezes the moment to tackle Young-cheol near the bus. As the infected swarm the bus, Se-jeong ducks underneath it. Losing sight of her, the infected attack the advertisement, trampling Young-cheol and shoving him into a burning Hyundai Tuscani. Enveloped in flames, an agonizing Young-cheol begs Se-jeong to save him, but she pushes him away with a broken car bumper. As the hive leader burns to death, the infected share his pain, writhing in agony before freezing completely like statues.Se-jeong walks through the frozen city and calls Seol-hee, stating they have a lot of work ahead of them. However, just before the credits roll, one of the frozen infected twitches, regains consciousness, and roars—revealing the birth of a new Alpha.

Storyline

• Professor Se Jeong attends a biotech conference, only to witness it spiral into catastrophe when a rapidly mutating virus is unleashed. As the outbreak spreads and the infected begin to transform, authorities seal off the entire facility.