An overlooked gem

We're only on the first month of 2014 and this film junkie has already seen a number of good films in the cinemas. First was the tearjerker catastrophe drama "Aftershock" by Chinese filmmaker Feng Xiaogang. Then, master director Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street", which is a gangster film really - but this time, it's the gangsters of the stock and financial market. And now, "Snowpiercer", the first English-language film of Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, who is known to cineastes as the maverick who brought them such gonzo Korean flicks like "Barking Dogs Never Bite", "Memories of Murder", "The Host" and "Mother".

Bong wasn't the only Korean filmmaker who has recently been given the opportunity to work with a predominantly American and/or English-speaking cast. There were Park Chan-wook ("Oldboy") who helmed Nicole Kidman in the chiller "Stoker" and Kim Jee-woon ("I Saw the Devil") who paired Arnold Schwarzenegger and Johnny Knoxville in the action romp "The Last Stand". My reception, though, to those films was somewhat mixed, thus reinforcing my perception that these filmmakers are at their best when working in their native country. Somewhere along the way, their unique sensibility is diminished or compromised when they start to venture into Hollywood. However, that perception may significantly change after I saw Bong's film. 

"Snowpiercer" manages to have the best of both worlds. That is, it manages to be entertaining enough to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. At the same time, it also manages to be thought-provoking enough to make them intrigued and enthralled by its curious concepts of post-apocalypse, class system, revolution, chaos and utopia. Based on the French science-fiction comic book/series "Le Transperceneige" published during the 1980s up until 2000, the film tells the story of a global annihilation caused by a government experiment gone terribly wrong, which made the entire planet uninhabitably cold and frozen. What remains of life on Earth are those who managed to board the Snowpiercer, a lengthy train on perpetual motion and seemingly without a final destination. Yet, it appears that those who were able to board the train can't really be considered the lucky ones, especially those who are on the "tail" part, as they have been reduced to mere rug-rats, subject to innumerable abuse and degradation by those who are in the "upper" class, headed foremost by a certain Mr. Wilford who has the privilege to live in the train's "head" part. Out of this chaos and injustice, an uprising arises, led by a physically agile yet emotionally fragile man named Curtis (portrayed by a nearly unrecognizable Chris Evans). This valiant, but ultimately tragic, act of the citizens of the train's "tail" part serves as the fuel for a story that happens mainly inside the moving vehicle. 

In the hands of a less skillful and imaginative filmmaker, this considerably claustrophobic film (we only manage to get a glimpse of the Apocalypse outside every now and then) may become a chore to sit through, a lamentably failed endeavor, given its ambitious and intriguing premise. But with a maverick filmmaker like Bong Joon-ho, who has a knack for intricate storytelling and absurd humor, and an eye for little details that will later on bear significantly on the story ("Memories of Murder" is a favorite, though none of his works has disappointed me thus far), "Snowpiercer" becomes a stunning feat, working both as a specimen of the science-fiction genre and a piece of social allegory. The distinctive cosmos that he has created inside the train is a visual treat, with the audience moving along the revolutionaries' exhaustive and unpredictable odyssey through the vehicle with a sense of bewilderment, anticipation and dread. It greatly helps as well that there are a number of breathtaking fight sequences (which don't feel extraneous) which add to the film's vigor, with one of them being somewhat inspired from the hammer sequence in "Oldboy" (and it comes to mind that Park Chan-wook was one of the film's producers). And I'm not exactly sure if it was just me, but sometimes I even sense a hint of Kubrick in this odyssey. There may be instances wherein the director nearly falls into the pit of Hollywoodland (especially during the climax), but thankfully his unique sensibility is just overwhelming that it blurs out any glimpse of predictability. And in this effort, his A-list of performers (both Hollywood and international - Tilda Swinton, Chris Evans, John Hurt, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ed Harris, Bong regulars Song Kang-ho and Ko Ah-sung, Luke Pasqualino, Vlad Ivanov, among others) becomes a real major asset - and it's interesting to find out what happens to all of them in the film! 

It is definitely high-caliber films like this one that are most deserving to be seen in our theaters by avid film-goers like us. And it's even ironic that "Snowpiercer" found its way to our local cinemas in the midst of the Oscar season. Makes us wonder even more if the Academy is really that blind. 

(Photo below shows the oppressed citizens starting a revolution in Bong Joon-ho's stunning science-fiction "Snowpiercer".)