Hey guys! Welcome back to Thriller Thursday. Today we’ll be looking at a film I only watched fairly recently – Snowpiercer!
I had debated whether to include this film in Thriller Thursdays seeing as the majority of the film is in English and some of the main actors are Chris Evans, Jamie Bell and John Hurt. But Snowpiercer was director Bong Jun Ho’s first English language film, and not to mention that it was produced by Park Chan Wook and also stars Song Kang Ho and Go Ah Sung. Long story short, despite the lack of Korean language, Snowpiercer has all the Korean thriller credentials, so lets get to it!
The film is set in the near future when an experiment to counteract global warming has caused another ice age which has killed most people on earth. The only known survivors are the passengers of a massive train called Snowpiercer, which is powered by perpetual motion travelling on a globe-spanning track. The years spent on the train has seen a class divide occur between the occupants, with the high classes living in the front of the train while the lower class live at the end of the train.
Snowpiercer follows the lower classes as they lead a rebellion and try to make their way towards the front of the train, as they have grown tired of being treated as lesser human beings and only being given protein blocks for food. We follow their efforts with ever rising tensions when things quickly get messy the further towards the front they get. Blood is shed, hostages are taken and heavy sacrifices are required to see this mission to the end, but has everyone been completely honest with why they want to get to the front?
In some ways, this film is pretty bleak, and if blood and gore bother you then maybe give this a miss. But personal, I greatly enjoyed this film, and found the mix of Eastern and Western influences to be awesome to watch.
Until next time!
