Snowpiercer Arrives With A Red Band Trailer And Photo Gallery
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Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s English-language debut, the post-apocalyptic Snowpiercer, has been through a long, arduous journey. Fortunately all of that is behind us now, and we’ll finally get to see the director’s cut in theaters soon. To mark the occasion, we now have an awesome new red band trailer and a collection of stills from the film.
Snowpiercer has already opened in numerous markets around the world—it set box office records in Bong’s native Korea when it debuted last August—and one of the hardest things has been seeing fantastic trailers drop one after another for releases that most of us in the English-speaking territories couldn’t see. But now we have one of our own, and it still looks every bit as incredible as we hoped.
Based on a French graphic novel, the film is set in a futuristic world where attempts to reverse the impact of global climate change kick off a new ice age, and the only survivors live in a constantly moving train. Within these cramped confines, and with these limited resources, a rigid caste system develops. In this trailer you see how the wealthy, who reside at the front of the train, live in well-lit luxury with access to education and good food. At the back of the train the rest live in cramped filth, piled on top of one another. You definitely see the discrepancy between rich and poor in this video, and with the vehement separation and disdain for the lower class, it is easy to understand how such a rebellion can begin.
The action, violence, and movement are front and center in this video. It’s probably not the best idea to watch this at work. There’s torture, bloodshed, and clashes of all shapes and sizes. All of this is also on display in this new gallery of still photos. You get to see most of the key players in the all-star international cast, including Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, Ed Harris, Alison Pill, Ewen Bremner, and Song Kang-ho.
The Weinstein Company picked up the distribution rights for North America and most of the rest of the English-speaking world. What followed was a protracted battle between TWC and Bong over significant edits they demanded. Despite garnering near universal acclaim, even being called a masterpiece from time to time, Harvey Weinstein wanted to trim more than 20-minutes of story and character development because he said audiences in middle-America are too stupid to understand the film. After a nearly endless back and forth, that situation has finally been resolved, and we’re finally getting to see Bong’s cut—which tested significantly better with American audiences than the TWC cut—in a limited release starting in June. It will play at the Los Angeles Film Festival June 11, and hits theaters and VOD on June 27.
