Snowpiercer facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Snowpiercer
US Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Bong Joon-ho
Produced by	Jeong Tae-sung Steven Nam Park Chan-wook Lee Tae-hun
Screenplay by	Bong Joon-ho Kelly Masterson
Story by	Bong Joon-ho
Starring	Chris Evans Song Kang-ho Tilda Swinton Jamie Bell Octavia Spencer Ewen Bremner Go Ah-sung John Hurt Ed Harris
Music by	Marco Beltrami
Cinematography	Hong Kyung-pyo
Editing by	Steve M. Choe Kim Chang-ju
Distributed by	CJ Entertainment (South Korea) The Weinstein Company (North America)
Release date(s)	29 July 2013 (2013-07-29) (Times Square) 1 August 2013 (2013-08-01) (South Korea)
Running time	126 minutes
Country	South Korea Czech Republic
Language	English, Korean
Budget	$40 million
Money made	$86.8 million

Snowpiercer (Hangul: 설국열차; Hanja: 雪國列車; RR: Seolgungnyeolcha) is a 2013 post-apocalyptic science fiction action film based on the French climate fiction graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette. The film was directed by Bong Joon-ho and written by Bong and Kelly Masterson. A South Korean-Czech co-production, the film marks Bong's English-language debut; almost 85% of the film's dialogue is in English.

The film stars Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Go Ah-sung, John Hurt, and Ed Harris. It takes place aboard the Snowpiercer train as it travels a globe-encircling track, carrying the last remnants of humanity after a failed attempt at climate engineering to stop global warming has created a new Snowball Earth. Evans stars as Curtis Everett, leader of the lower-class tail-section passengers, as they rebel against the elite of the front of the train. Filming took place at Barrandov Studios in Prague, using train car sets mounted on gimbals to simulate the train's motion.

Snowpiercer received critical acclaim, and appeared on many film critics' top ten lists of 2014 after its international release, with praise for its vision, direction, and performances, particularly by Evans and Swinton. In the United States, the film was initially planned for a limited-screen showing but the critical response prompted The Weinstein Company to expand the showing to more theaters and to digital streaming services. With a budget of $40 million, it remains one of the most expensive South Korean productions ever.

Cast

• Chris Evans as Curtis Everett
  The leader of the revolution.
• Song Kang-ho as Namgoong Minsoo
  The specialist who designed the security features on the train.
• Ed Harris as Wilford
  The creator and caretaker of the engine.
• John Hurt as Gilliam
  The spiritual leader of the tail section.
• Tilda Swinton as Minister Mason
  Wilford's right hand, the second in command on the train and the spokesperson for Wilford for the past 17 years.
• Jamie Bell as Edgar
  Curtis's second-in-command.
• Octavia Spencer as Tanya
  A determined mother who is set on getting her son back.
• Go Ah-sung (credited as Ko Asung) as Yona Minsoo
  The 17-year-old daughter of Namgoong Minsoo.
• Alison Pill as Teacher
  Found teaching a classroom of young students, towards the front of the Snowpiercer.
• Vlad Ivanov as Franco the Elder
  A seemingly indestructible henchman working for Minister Mason.
• Luke Pasqualino as Grey
  Gilliam's bodyguard, a muscular, agile, fast-moving warrior who is handy with knives.

Additionally, Adnan Hasković as Franco the Younger, an executor of the army led by Mason; Clark Middleton as the Painter, who is often seen drawing other passengers or key events visually chronicling underclass life and death; Emma Levie as Claude, Wilford's assistant who may have a relationship with Wilford; Tómas Lemarquis as Egg-head, one of Wilford's agents that aids in the New Year celebration massacre; Steve Park as Fuyu, a regimented assistant to Mason; and Paul Lazar as Paul, one of the rebels in Curtis's army who makes the protein blocks. The creators of the graphic novel, Jean-Marc Rochette and Benjamin Legrand, have cameo appearances in the film.

Design

Costume design

Costume designer Catherine George explained that Mason was initially inspired by a Smithsonian photograph that production designer Ondřej Nekvasil had found of an older lady amongst a room full of dead birds at the Museum of Natural History, who was a real person from Swinton's childhood. In designing Mason's costume, George found images of women from their late sixties and early seventies, adding that, "... a certain type that I remembered growing up who would wear their fur to go into town and scoff at people who were less better off, a bit of a Margaret Thatcher type, really." George also designed Mason's suit to look "a typical conservative politician shape and style" with the purple adding a royal quality to the attire. She had "collected pictures of dictators wearing elaborate uniforms and crazy hand-made medals" to experiment with the designs of such a character. George later admitted to the similarities to Ayn Rand, although not intentional. George and Bong travelled to Swinton's home in Scotland with "a couple of suitcases of clothes, wigs, glasses and teeth" to play around with ideas.

On creating individuality for the passengers in the tail section, George had the designs come from random materials they would use to fashion practical clothing, "The tail section clothing was pieced together from different garments and repairs were made on top of that. They had to improvise with any materials that were left on the train." For the design of Curtis, Bong and George wanted him to be anonymous but at the same time recognizable. The design was difficult as George had to conceal Evans's muscular physique and muscle mass thus, "We had to cut out the sleeves of his under layers to help him look leaner."

George personally designed the costumes for Nam and Yona, who wear the "darker-coloured intense black". Taking inspiration from photographs of train engineers from an early industrial period and vintage French railway jackets, it was designed while she looked at utilitarian clothes due to Nam previously being a train engineer before his imprisonment. George also designed many of the tail section costumes, including Nam's, using Japanese Boro fabric.

In creating Claude's yellow coat and dress, George was mindful of the fact it was the first colour of brightness in the tail section scene, as well as the property of yellow being the most luminous colour in the spectrum. She expressed, "It's the colour that captures our attention more than any other and in colour psychology yellow is non-emotional and lacking compassion." Camera testing occurred before deciding the final colours as well as observing how they'd interact, with the back drop of darker costume colours.

Production design

Bong and his illustrators created various pieces of concept art for the train cars of Snowpiercer, led by Czech production designer Ondřej Nekvasil, who was brought onto the production team to help realize those visions. Nekvasil approached the atmosphere of the tail section it as if it were a "dark, monochromatic ... life", emphasising poor living arrangements, to which he found inspiration from poor areas of Hong Kong and elsewhere to put in the set designs. In order to make the colours appear "used" and "dirty", Nekvasil and company started with colourful props that were subsequently washed out and forcibly aged to create a feeling of "really used property and space", while creating a back story to justify the appearance.

When designing the train, Nekvasil and Bong hit upon the idea of the train not being designed by one man in one specific moment; the idea that "these various train cars were built in different periods of Wilford's life". Another idea was the logical scale of the train itself, though Bong entertained the notion of it being beyond a logical scale, Nekvasil stated, " ... if it's 20 feet wide, it'll no longer seem like a train." Dimensions and sizes were discussed, and the design sized finalised was "slightly bigger than a typical train", though enough to allow space for camera movement inside the train. The design was difficult due to distance limitations, as Nekvasil said, "... the biggest stage we had, which was about 300 feet long, was not big enough to fit everything."

Instead of overly relying on CGI, Nekvasil's production design team constructed twenty-six individual train cars and used a giant gyroscopic gimbal in Prague's Barrandov Studios to simulate the movement of an actual train when shooting. Bong stated that the gimbal was used on the third day of shooting, explaining, "Sometimes we felt carsick on set," due to the realistic effects of the gimbal.

Sound design

Sound engineers Anna Behlmer, Terry Porter and Mark Holding mixed the sound for Snowpiercer, supervised by sound editor Taeyoung Choi.

Music and soundtrack

In May 2012, Marco Beltrami was hired to compose the incidental music for Snowpiercer. In January 2013, a song titled Yona Lights was released on the film's official website in South Korea. On July 2013, during the 007 Fimucité at Tenerife International Film Music Festival in the Canary Islands, a few pieces of the three films composed by Beltrami (Snowpiercer, Soul Surfer and The Wolverine) were selected for the performance.

The film's official soundtrack was released in August 2013 in South Korea and the international release date was on 9 September 2013.

Release

Snowpiercer premiered at the Times Square on 29 July 2013 in Seoul, South Korea, before screening at the Deauville American Film Festival as the closing film on 7 September 2013, the Berlin International Film Festival as the part of Berlin's Forum sidebar on 7 February 2014, opening the Los Angeles Film Festival on 11 June 2014, and the Edinburgh International Film Festival on 22 June 2014.

Home media

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in various countries, including France and Korea, over Q3 and Q4 first, before the movie was finally debuted in North American theaters. The film was eventually released on home media in North America by Starz's Anchor Bay Entertainment through The Weinstein Company Home Entertainment on 21 October 2014, and became available on Netflix for streaming on 1 November 2014. It did not get a genuine UK release until November 2018, when it was made available digitally via Amazon Prime Video and was released on DVD & Blu-ray in 2020.

TV series

The film, along with the original French graphic novel, was adapted into an American television show by Tomorrow Studios, and premiered on TNT on May 17, 2020, in the United States. It is available on Netflix for worldwide distribution. The show stars Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs, among others, and takes place in a rebooted narrative of the film, with events on the train starting about seven years after the global catastrophe.

Accolades, awards and nominations

Images for kids

• 

  Director Bong Joon-ho promoting the film at the 2013 Deauville American Film Festival

See also

In Spanish: Snowpiercer para niños

• The Day After Tomorrow