If you haven’t heard of Snowpiercer, you’re not alone. Originally released in only 8 theaters before receiving a wider release in July 2014, it only made just over $4 million at the domestic box office. Even with its release on streaming later that year, most people I’ve brought this movie up to reply with a resounding “I’ve never heard of that.”
Only a few years later though, Snowpiercer’s director Bong Joon-ho would release Parasite, a phenomenal film that made over $250 million at the global box office and won Best Picture at the Oscars. Even still, his earlier international work is often neglected or unheard of, even though it contains many of the same building blocks that made Parasite a masterpiece. I would go as far as to argue that Snowpiercer walked so that Parasite could fly, and it’s a great film in its own right.
What Snowpiercer Means to Us
For a time in the 2010s, I was watching any movie that featured the main cast of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While Lucy was too strange for its own good, Snowpiercer was a tense and thrilling post-apocalyptic ride (literally). Chris Evans flexes acting muscles in this that I don’t think he has since, while Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, and John Hurt are excellent as always. While there are some great action set pieces (and even just scenes in general like the one tail section survivor getting his arm frozen as punishment), nothing tops the third-act twist. It ties everything together in a shocking, yet delightful way.
–Marmaduke Karlston
Despite the generic, expositional dialogue in its first act, Snowpiercer fully kicks into gear with one of the most badass moments in cinema when protagonist Curtis tests his theory that the soldiers oppressing him and his people have no bullets, racing towards one, aiming their gun at his head and pulling the trigger. This brief fatalistic act heralds some thrilling action sequences that never feel dull or repetitive despite this movie’s single location. Creative set pieces and some lively performances (especially from Tilda Swinton) make this a really enjoyable watch, even if there are points where you can sense that this is director Bong Joon-ho’s first film in a language he isn’t fluent in.
–Cian McGrath
The Story
Snowpiercer follows the events in a post-apocalyptic future where attempts at a stratospheric aerosol injection to reverse climate change have backfired and caused a global Ice Age. The Snowpiercer, a 1001-car train, contains all that remains of humanity. The movie picks up 17 years after the train was boarded, and follows Curtis (played by Chris Evans) who resides in tight quarters in one of the tail train cars, where humans live in starvation and squalor.
The story of Snowpiercer was originally a French graphic novel titled Le Transperceneige, which engrossed Bong Joon-ho so much that he claims to have read it all standing in the bookstore where he found it. The story of the graphic novel is similar, but instead follows the main character Proloff as he escapes the rear-most cars and rendezvous with Adeline Belleau, another passenger who has been campaigning for reintegration between the back cars and the rest of the train. While the pieces are still there, Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer is a very different story with different characters, as he acknowledged himself in The National that “…rather than cut out some scenes from the comic, I just rewrote the whole story to fit this time frame.”
From the beginning, Snowpiercer hooks you with the opening scene: Curtis in the tail-end cars standing alone in a crowd of people seated on the floor, while the machine-gun-toting guards demand he sit to be counted. We soon learn that this small act of rebellion serves a greater purpose: he is counting the timing for the closing automatic doors between the back four cars. As their world aboard the train develops, we see just how dire the living conditions are for those in the tail cars. The stark contrast is drawn immediately by Tilda Swinton’s Minister Mason who declares them “freeloaders” unlike those who paid to be here in “first class.”
Though Snowpiercer features moments of poignant characterization and jaw-dropping intensity that made Parasite great, it has much more in common with his Korean title The Host than with Parasite. This is an action movie with some brutal theming, forcing viewers to look at parallels in today’s culture with a harsh lens. That Chris Evans scene where he tearfully admits that “knows what people taste like” and how he hates that about himself is chilling, but doesn’t dehumanize or judge his character. Honestly, he gives the best performance of his career here (I said what I said), and John Hurt, Ed Harris and Tilda Swinton are all at their best. The heart of the movie is Song Kang-ho, who would go on to star in Parasite. His performance towards the end of the movie brought me to tears, and his character’s relationship with his daughter (played by Ko Ah-sung) made for some comedic moments in the darkness of this setting.
“We’ll Be Different When We Get There”
I didn’t know what to expect when I watched Snowpiercer for the first time. At the time, Netflix was the only streaming service I had (how times have changed!), and I think my partner and I watched it because it was streaming and had above a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. I did not expect a gripping story that was simultaneously a structured take-down of the current classist structures in South Korea. I was left with a sense of unease and sick distaste similar to how I felt after Get Out, like there was all this injustice in the world that I went day to day barely thinking about. I think good movies have the potential to do that though, and shifting perspective is just a part of learning.
Wealth inequality in South Korea is a major issue, with the average income of the top 10% making almost nine times more than the average salary. As of 2020, almost 40% of all employed citizens are low-wage and with a very weak currency, the reality of South Korea parallels the rear-end passengers experience on Snowpiercer. It’s easy to see Bong Joon-ho’s inspiration when the average income in South Korea adds up to just over $10,000 USD per year.
Discussions of inequality and class are the skeleton holding Snowpiercer together, and the examples are so on-the-nose that it’s impossible to ignore. I’ve seen some folks online express concern about just how straightforward the story is when addressing these issues, leading up to an almost literal trolley-problem scenario in the final act. Personally though, I think the direct nature of the dialogue is the point. When hinted at, many of these issues seem to be misunderstood or hand-waved away as a bad guy narrative. We’ve seen this happen in new projects like Squid Game or even Joon-ho’s Parasite. However, Snowpiercer is incredibly clear: there are no bad guys. The bad guy is the system, and as long as the system exists, it doesn’t matter who’s in charge.
My Father was a Fisherman
The production for Snowpiercer was a journey in and of itself. After acquiring the copyrights for Le Transperceneige in 2006, the project would stay in production until 2012, taking years to cast, write, and fund the $40 million budget for the film. It still remains one of the most expensive projects in the history of South Korean cinema.
Bong Joon-ho wished to shoot in South Korea, but it became impossible due to the amount of space needed for the set he wanted to create. Because of this, it was shot in Barrandov Studio in Prague, with much of the snowscapes being filmed in nearby Austria. The studio created the train cars set on gimbals to mimic the movement of a real train. The total weight of this system was nearly 100 tons. This, along with working with Scanline VFX (the company responsible for the last seasons of both Stranger Things and Game of Thrones), made a dystopian future that felt rugged and lived-in, despite the premise.
The drama came in the post-production, when Harvey Weinstein (yikes) demanded 25 minutes be cut from the movie’s run time, citing too much dialogue, and asked for a voice-over scene to be added at the end of the film. Joon-ho refused this, saying in his interview with Vulture: “They want to make it easier for the audience to understand the ending. But at the same time, I love a little bit more ambiguity.”
One scene was an absolute sticking point between the two: the fish gutting scene. Weinstein hated the scene but Bong Joon-ho insisted that they keep it, even lying and saying that his father was a fisherman in order to manipulate Weinstein into letting him keep the scene.
In the end, Weinstein’s cut of the movie received worse ratings than Joon-ho’s cut among test screenings, so with the support of cast members like John Hurt and Tilda Swinton, his cut was finally released. Originally only in eight theaters, as I mentioned before, it later widened to over 150 theaters due to good reviews.
Today, the film has a cult following due to streaming. I can’t overstate how much I feel the movie deserves more though. While the “eat the rich” narrative has certainly gained popularity in the United States over time, this film actually goes there and on more than just a surface-level “rich man bad” commentary. Instead, it chooses to lock in on the characters and the moral gray of their choices. If you enjoyed Parasite, I definitely recommend going back and watching this movie, as well as his other films. They will make you sad, but you won’t regret it.
Do you have a fun fact, piece of trivia, or analysis about Snowpiercer? Please share it in the comments!