Review: Snowpiercer

As I say at the beginning of my review of Korean director Bong Joon-Ho's first English-language film, if you're like me then the first thing you ever heard about Snowpiercer was that it was in danger of being chopped down and dumbed down by its distributors for the sake of English-speaking audiences.  And then you were probably incensed, not only because you're fully capable of watching a 125-minute film with a small amount of foreign language dialogue and a moderate gore, and not only because Snowpiercer is one of those rare SF films that is neither a sequel, a remake, or a reboot, but because it's been getting such good reviews abroad and you wanted to see it in all its original, uncut glory.

As I write in my review in Strange Horizons, to go into Snowpiercer with all this in mind is probably to do the film a disservice, because what this knowledge does is take an interesting, well-done, but ultimately thoroughly conventional SF action film and turn into the vanguard of the fight against Hollywood predictability, a burden that it can't really shoulder.  That said, taken on its own terms Snowpiercer is definitely worth a look.  I'm glad that Israeli film distributors brought it here (and I can only hope this bodes well for other intriguing genre projects like Under the Skin and Only Lovers Left Alive), and I certainly recommend seeking it out if it comes to your territory.

Comments

Mistermoman said…
Hello - not actually commenting on this posting of yours, but rather just wanted to say I just discovered your blog (my wife directed me to it), and I am enjoying it so much! I'm a liberal rabbi living in the US, and a writer of a different sort (non-fiction progressive religious riffs on Jewish texts). Todah rabbah for your work here.
April 21, 2014 3:18 AM

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