International Snowpiercer Trailer Paints An Action Packed Picture
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While there is still no word on when American audiences will lay eyes on Bong Joon-ho’s English language debut Snowpiercer, the film is the process of opening up all across the world. Next up is a wide release in France—the movie is based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige—where it opens on October 30. Building up to that release, we have a tense new trailer to make us hope that The Weinstein Company gets off their ass, decides what they’re going to do about an American edit, and get the damn movie into theaters. With every successive look, the film looks better and better.
This video shows you some of what you’ve already seen, but also includes a bunch of new footage, and throws some new plot details into the mix as well. Snowpiercer is set in the year 2031, where attempts to reverse global warming have kicked off a new ice age. The last remnants of humanity live on a train that, powered by a perpetual motion engine, endlessly circles the frozen planet. As this trailer says, this train is the world now. We’ve caught glimpses of the outside, mostly split second blips of footage, but here we get longer, wider views that present a more complete picture of what they’re dealing with.
Over years trapped inside the train, a rigid class divide has developed, where the wealthy live in luxury in the front, and the rest dwell in squalor at the back. Most of the focus has been on the filthy, grubby portion, but here we see more of how the other half lives. By far the coolest is the aquarium car, where you essentially walk through the middle of the tank. This is only a split second peek, but damn that looks fantastic.
This trailer also provides some finer story details. We knew that the plot involves an uprising, but now we learn that there have been other attempts in the past, attempts that have failed. Led by Curtis (Chris Evans), the rebellion aims to take the engine, and thus seize control of the entire train. However, this task may be easier said than done. Though they may live soft lives, relatively speaking, these are no pushovers. At first glance Allison Pill’s character may look like a perky, young schoolteacher, but she’s also strapped, and apparently knows how to use it.
Sinister imagery, like those soldiers in eyeless masks, mix with implications that the passengers at the front take the young from those in the back, give Snowpiercer a grim, unique feel. Combine this with a stellar international cast that includes Evans, Pill, Tilda Swinton, Song Kang-ho, John Hurt, Ed Harris, Octavia Spencer, Jamie Bell, Ewen Bremner, and more, and you’ve got the makings of one hell of a movie.
There have been widespread reports that The Weinstein Company has ordered 20 minutes of story and character development cut from Bong’s two-hour edit of the film. As the film gathers rave reviews from around the globe, these rumors seem to have softened somewhat, but we’ll have to wait and see. Hopefully we’ll hear something, one way or another, soon.
