The Films of Bong Jong-ho: Conclusion and Re-Ranking

I’m glad I revisited the films of Bong Joon-ho in anticipation of his Palme D’or winning Parasite. It allowed me to fill in a couple of blind spots in his filmography, and revisit what is really a strong filmography over the past two decades. I don’t really think that there was a real discovery here – the films were pretty much as I remembered – although a couple of films flipped in my ranking, I don’t really think I changed my mind much on his work. Still, it was a reminder of just how great his filmography is – particularly those three middle films (from Memories of Murder to Mother) made in Korea. I am happy that he returned to a strictly Korean film after two larger budget, international films with Parasite. He truly is one of the best directors working today.

 

And now, a re-ranking.

 

9. Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000) – Bong’s debut film is his weakest. The best parts of the film are around the edges here, and you can tell that there is a lot of talent here, although overall, I’m not sure it all comes together. Still, a fine film – just not in relation to what else he has done.

 

8. Influenza (2004) – Bong’s 2004 short film is basically him experimenting with how to make a film entirely through CCTV cameras. Bong finds many ways to tell the story of one man’s downfall, and looks impressive. Still, it’s mainly an experiment – an interesting one, but an experiment just the same.

 

7. Tokyo: Shaking Tokyo (2008) – Bong’s segment in a triptych of stories from outsiders about Tokyo is the best of the three films – a film about a lonely man, who has withdrawn from society, and slowly is drawn back in. It’s a sad film in many ways, but wonderfully realized.

 

6. Snowpiercer (2013) – The film is absolutely brilliantly directed – an action masterwork in many ways, with brilliant cinematography and art direction. I wish the film was a little deeper on many other levels, but as a directing exercise, the film is still brilliant.

 

5. Okja (2017) – The film is massively ambitious, and perhaps a little overstuffed and messy, but that’s all by design, and brilliantly realized by Bong. The emotional core of the story is so strong that it allows him to fire off in many directions, and still have a great core.

 

4. The Host (2006) – This really was Bong’s international breakthrough, and the film still works. In terms of giant monster movies, it’s as good as anything ever made, with great special effects on a budget, an emotional core of a family story, some wonderfully strange slapstick moments, and some moments that are truly scary. This deserved the attention it got.

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3. Mother (2009) – Mother starts out like a movie you’ve seen before – a mother trying to prove her son’s innocence when accused of a murder. And then the film gets deeper, darker and stranger throughout. There are a lot of great performances in Bong’s films – none more so than Kim Hye-ja, who delivered a performance that puts most Oscar winners to shame.

 

2. Memories of Murder (2003) – Bong’s first masterpiece, is still his best film. Before there was David Fincher’s Zodiac, there was Bong’s Memories of Murder – a police procedural that grows deeper and darker, as we move further and further away from the any real answers. A deep, dark, brilliant film that is on one level a serial killer thriller – and one many other levels, so much more. One of the best films of the century so far.

 

1.Parasite (2019) – Bong’s latest film really is his best – a perfect distillation of everything he has done before, making you think you’re watching an escapist film, when really, you’re watching the farthest thing from it. Parasite builds slowly, but is never less than enthralling and entertaining – and then going bonkers in a brilliant way in the second half. Sometimes the buzz is right – Parasite is such a example.

The Films of Bong Joon-ho: Okja (2017)

Okja (2017) 

Directed by: Joon-ho Bong.

Written by: Joon-ho Bong and Jon Ronson.

Starring: Seo-hyun Ahn (Mija), Tilda Swinton (Lucy Mirando / Nancy Mirando), Jose Carias (Señor Villacorta), Giancarlo Esposito (Frank Dawson), Jake Gyllenhaal (Johnny Wilcox), Jeong-eun Lee (Okja's Voice / Woman in Wheelchair), Hee-Bong Byun (Hee Bong), Jaein Kim (Young Mija), Je-mun Yun (Mundo Park), Shirley Henderson (Jennifer), Woo-sik Choi (Kim), Steven Yeun (K), Paul Dano (Jay), Daniel Henshall (Blond), Lily Collins (Red), Devon Bostick (Silver), Waris Ahluwalia (Waris), Phillip Garcia (Diego Alejandro).

 

Okja is such an ambitious film – a film that is so jam packed with narrative, characters, themes, etc. – that when I watched it the first time back in 2017, I think I underrated it somewhat. At first glance, the film can seem like kind of a mess – lashing out in many different directions, that it seemed to lack focus. Watching it again though, the piece’s kind of fall into place in a better way – and the emotional core of the film – the relationship between a little girl and her giant pig – is still so moving, that it carries the film through. I really liked the film in 2017 – I think I may love it now.

 

Okja takes place in the near future – where a worldwide food crisis is in effect, so the Mirando Corporation has created a new so-called Superpig. This pig will be providing meat to everyone – and do a lot more. To promote this, Mirando has given a 1 super pig to 10 farmers around the world, and for 10 years they’ll raise it however they see it. We concentrate on the Korean farmer – specifically, his granddaughter Mija (Seo-hyun Ahn), who grows up with their super pig – named Okja – and bond with him. When the 10 years are up, and Mirando comes calling for their pig, she doesn’t want to give him up – but she doesn’t much have a choice.

 

What follows from there is the part of the film that is ambitious, and lashes out in all sorts of directions. There is is the current CEO or Mirando – Lucy (Tilda Swinton), who wants the world of love Mirando, and is conscious of its image, and the former CEO Nancy (also Swinton) who doesn’t much care for anything but money. The “face” of Mirando is TV star Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal, who is nothing else, certainly made some choices with his performance) – one of those nature TV stars who was big when the super pig project launched, not so much anymore. There is also an animal rights group – led by Jay (Paul Dano), whose utter calmness distracts from some rather violent tactics. There is a ton of action, and heartache – all leading to a scene at a factory farm which is only a quasi-happy ending – it’s still utterly horrifying, saddening and depressing.

 

There is a lot going on in Okja. Like Snowpiercer, the film is an international co-production – this one for Netflix, with a mixture of cast between Korean and English speakers. Unlike Snowpiercer though, this film integrates that into the story – it is a story of cultural differences and language barriers – with Steven Yeun as K, a member of that animal rights group, being a kind of bridge (and showing how smart he is in the process – not limiting himself to what he could get in American films, a strategy starts served him even better in Lee Chang-dong’s masterpiece Burning). Bong does waste any of that money either – the special effects in the film are brilliant, and Okja is one of the most memorable, most lovable and best looking all CGI characters you will see in a film. He also shows, as he did in The Host and Snowpiercer, just how great he is at staging action sequences. Perhaps starting out with a special effects movie like The Host was good for Bong in the long term – that was fairly low-budget by blockbuster standards, and forced Bong to be smart in how he deployed special effects. He pulls some of the same neat tricks off here – with lots going on in the background.

 

The cast is pretty great as well. Young Seo-hyun Ahn anchors the film with an earnest, emotional performance that breaks your heart. Because she is such a strong center – it allows the likes of Swinton, Dano and especially Gyllenhaal to fly off the rails at times, going completely over-the-top, often brilliantly. I love it when Swinton lets her freak flag fly – and she gets to do that in two different roles in this film. I’m still entirely sure what the hell Gyllenhaal was doing in this film – but I think I loved it.

 

Okja is a film that does lash out in many different directions – at corporate greed, at factory farming, even at that animal rights group, which isn’t as pure as they like to pretend it is. It is a film that can be a heartwarming E.T.-like story one minute, an action movie the next, a satire the next, and a message movie right after. Yes, it is still is kind of a mess in that regards – but it’s a glorious mess, with Bong presiding over the entire thing, and knowing precisely what he is doing.

The Films of Bong Joon-ho: Snowpiercer (2013)

Snowpiercer (2013) 

Directed by: Joon-ho Bong.

Written by: Joon-ho Bong and Kelly Masterson based on the book by Jacques Lob & Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette.

Starring: Chris Evans (Curtis), Kang-ho Song (Namgoong Minsoo), Ed Harris (Wilford), John Hurt (Gilliam), Tilda Swinton (Mason), Jamie Bell (Edgar), Octavia Spencer (Tanya), Ewen Bremner (Andrew), Ko Asung (Yona), Alison Pill (Teacher), Luke Pasqualino (Grey), Vlad Ivanov (Franco the Elder), Adnan Haskovic (Franco the Younger), Emma Levie (Claude), Steve Park (Fuyu), Marcanthonee Reis (Tim), Paul Lazar (Paul), Tómas Lemarquis (Egg-Head), Robert Russell (Gerald), Magda Weigertová (Doris), Ana Braun (Ylfa), Tyler John Williams (Young Wilford), Luna Sophia Bar-Cohen (Magdalena), Sean Connor Renwick (Sergio), Karel Veselý (Andy), Sung-taek Park (Chan). 

 

Watching Snowpiercer for the first time since seeing it in theaters back in 2013, I was once again struck by just how magnificently directed this film is. After perhaps too talky a first act – too much setup – the film is basically one thrilling set piece after another – one achievement in art direction, cinematography and action choreography after another, all handled brilliantly. And then the ending comes, and I cannot help but feel let down – because this movie that seems that perhaps its pushing for something wholly unique, ends up just not quite being able to get there. It’s still a thrilling achievement – an example of how to do a large scale, international co-production, action blockbuster, and how to do it well. I just wish the film had pushed itself a little harder in the end.

 

The basic premise of Snowpiercer is simple (which is why the setup goes on too long) – 17-years ago, humanity messed everything up, and basically created a new ice age. The only people who were able to survive are the ones who were able to board a massive train, designed by Wilford (Ed Harris), which has been in constant motion, circumnavigating the globe at the rate of one time per year ever since. The people at the front of the train were the rich and powerful – and they continue to live in luxury. The people at the back of the train were poor, and continue to be just cogs in the machine – used for manual, dirty labor, and subsisting on black gelatin rectangles of “protein bars”. Then the front people come and take two children from the back – for some undisclosed purpose – and those at the back have finally had enough. Led by Curtis (Chris Evans) they stage an uprising, and start to take back the train one car at a time.

 

The train itself really is a stunning feat of production design – several in fact, because each and every car is completely different than the one that came before it, and often they are stunning to look at (my favorite is probably the fish car – but there are many to choose from). The cinematography by Kyung-pyo Hong is also quite stunning – the color palette changes as they make their way through the cars, and the action camera work is brilliant – as Bong and company let most of the scenes play out in longer takes, so you get a sense of what is happening. All of this is set to the pulsating score of Marco Beltrami – which keeps the movie humming along.

 

In an action movie like this, character development is often sacrificed – and for the most part, that happens here as well. Evans is playing the square jawed hero he already was in Captain America, and he does that very well. The film tries to give him a tragic backstory – and a monologue to tell said backstory – buts it a little too on the nose. The film does reunite father and daughter from The Hose with Kang-ho Song and Ko Asung, playing again, father and daughter – and it works, although I’m not quite sure I buy the various reveals throughout the movie about them that the film tries to spring. The best of the major performances in by Tilda Swinton as the representative from the front who has to deal with the revolution in the back – and is eventually taken hostage. It’s one of those demented Swinton performances, where a lesser actress would simple rely on the heavy makeup (brilliantly done) – but which Swinton takes, and runs with it in bizarre, memorable ways. Out of all the smaller performance, Allison Pill’s one scene wonder as a very chipper teacher is brilliant.

 

Watching it this second time though, I was struck by the fact that no matter how brilliantly made Snowpiercer is – and it is on every level – it just isn’t as interesting on a narrative or character level – or even a thematic one. It’s a rather typical dystopian future narrative, right down to the final reveals. Yes, everything works – the film moves rather quickly for an action movie that runs over two-hours (although, it is a movie that could probably stand to lose 20 minutes or so). This time through though, I wanted more depth to go along with the spectacle – which still delivers. – and shows what a brilliant director Bong is. I just wanted a little bit more from the film.

The Films of Bong Joon-ho: Mother (2009)

Mother (2009) 

Directed by: Joon-ho Bong.

Written by: Joon-ho Bong and Eun-kyo Park & Joon-ho Bong.

Starring: Hye-ja Kim (Mother), Won Bin (Yoon Do-joon), Goo Jin (Jin-tae), Je-mun Yun (Je-moon), Mi-seon Jeon (Mi-sun), Sae-byeok Song (Sepaktakraw Detective), Woo-hee Chun (Mi-na), Gin-goo Kim (Ah-jeong's Grandma), Moo-yeong Yeo (Lawyer Kong Seok-ho), Hee-ra Mun (Moon Ah-jeong), Mi-do Lee (Hyung-teo), Young-ki Jung (Kkang-ma), Gyu-pil Go (Ddung-ddung), Hong-jib Kim (Jong-pal), Kyung-Sook Cho (Mi-na's Mama), Myung-shin Park (Chief), Tae-won Kim (Young Do-jun).

 

You think you know where Joon-ho Bong’s Mother is going – and you are almost certainly going to be wrong. After a few establishing scenes, where we get to know Do-joon (Won Bin) – a mental with some mental difficulties, and his devoted mother (Kim Hye-ja), who is never given a name other than Mother – we find out a murder has been committed. The murder is that of a teenage girl – whose head was bashed in, before she was put on display for the whole small town to see. There are a few clues that point to Do-joon, and the it doesn’t take the cops long to get a “confession” out of him for the murder – although it’s clear he doesn’t really understand what is going on, and he is thrown in jail awaiting trial. The cops are convinced they have the right man – or at least don’t care enough to look any harder, the high priced lawyer she has hired (and cannot afford) doesn’t much care, and no one else does either. Therefore, it’s up to mother to get to the bottom of the case – to prove her son’s innocence.

 

That probably sounds like a fairly typical setup for a thriller. And you could easily make a conventional thriller out of the material. Those opening scenes of the cops interrogating Do-joon will no doubt remind you of the early scenes in another Bong Joon-ho film – Memories of Murder – where it was clear the cops didn’t really care if they caught the right person, so long as they got someone to confess, so they could close the case and move on. And yet, like Memories of Murder, Mother doesn’t go where you expect it to go. It starts as a mystery, and deepens into a character study of Mother.

 

Kim Hye-ja gives a truly great performance in the lead role. When the film begins, you think she is the typical, overbearing, overprotective mother – and yet, with her you understand it more. Do-joon may be an adult, but he has the mental capacity of a child – and has fallen in with a bad crowd – notably Jin-tae (Goo Jin) a low level criminal and con artist, who uses Do-joon in his schemes. Of course she worries about it – look what happens when she isn’t there to protect him. But slowly, her character deepens – and her motivations for doing so much for Do-joon become more complicated. It isn’t just motherly love and devotion – it’s a deep sense of guilt and shame. Bong even reveals what in other films may have been a final scene twist at the half way point – and then allows the film to get darker from there. The darkness isn’t just about Mother – but about society in general – the cell phone of the victim becomes a key piece of evidence, that shows things we’d rather not think about. Jin Tae re-enters the picture, full of violence and rage. And Mother finds she can do a lot of things she didn’t think she could.

 

By the time we get to the end of the movie, everything has been turned on its head – and no matter what, nothing can be the same again. Both Mother and Do-joon know too much about each other, and have shown that dark side, to each other. And yet, of course, Mother is still there protecting Do-joon – even when he becomes somewhat cruel to her, rubbing her nose in what he no knows that she wishes he didn’t. But the love may no longer be there.

 

Mother is a complicated film. It looks and acts like a thriller – a procedural, in which an unlikely detective follows one clue after another, hoping to put them all into place. But ultimately, Bong isn’t as interested in that as he seems. The film has answers to all your questions – it resolves everything. It’s just that by the time it supplies them, you care about so much more than those simple answers. It’s what makes Mother so a powerful, complex film.

The Films of Bong Joon-ho: Tokyo! (2008)

Tokyo! (2008) 

Directed by: Michel Gondry (Interior Design) and Leos Carax (Merde) and Joon-ho Bong (Shaking Tokyo). 

Written by: Michel Gondry based on the graphic novel by Gabrielle Bell (Interior Design) and Leos Carax (Merde) and Joon-ho Bong (Shaking Tokyo).

Starring: Ayako Fujitani (Hiroko - Interior Design), Ryo Kase (Akira - Interior Design), Ayumi Itô (Akemi - Interior Design), Nao Ohmori (Hiroshi - Interior Design), Satoshi Tsumabuki (Takeshi - Interior Design), Motomi Makiguchi (Clochard - Interior Design), Denis Lavant (Merde – Merde), Jean-François Balmer (Maître Voland – Merde), Renji Ishibashi (L'avocat général - Merde), Toshiyuki Kitami (Le procureur - Merde), Kyûsaku Shimada (Le directeur de prison - Merde), Azusa Takehana (Le présentatrice TV - Merde), Yû Aoi (La livreuse de pizza - Shaking Tokyo), Teruyuki Kagawa (L'homme - Shaking Tokyo), Naoto Takenaka (Le patron de la pizzeria - Shaking Tokyo).

 

It is somewhat odd that an omnibus movie called Tokyo, which features a trio of short films set in and about the Japanese city, contain no films by a Japanese filmmaker – opting instead for two Frenchman and a Korean director. And yet, for the most part this strange decision works – as the trio of films are all about the alienating effect the city can have – making everyone feel like an outsider, like they don’t belong there. The filmmakers in question are Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Joon-ho Bong, and while none of the segments come close to being among their best work, they are all interesting in their own way.

 

Gondry’s segment is called Interior Design, and is about a young Japanese couple who are struggling to find an apartment in the expensive, overcrowded city, and have been crashing at a friend’s place. Akira (Ryo Kase) is an aspiring filmmaker (which gives Gondry a chance to do what he apparently loves most – make a parody of low budget art films in all their pretentious glory). His girlfriend Hiroko (Ayako Fujitani) is supportive of his career and ambitions, and they seem happy enough. But the apartment search drags on – and she begins to feel more and more useless and aimless, realizing that she doesn’t have many ambitions of her own. Eventually this emotional toll turns physical – and she literally starts changing in a way that allows Gondry many chances to be funny and whimsical, in a story that may have been better served with a more serious touch.

 

Carax’s segment entitled Merde is about the title character (played by Denis Lavant, in a great performance, that is kind of a dry run for part of the pairs brilliant collaboration Holy Motors a few years later). Merde is a milky eyed monster, emerging from the sewers of Tokyo to terrify residents. In the single best scene in the entire movie, he emerges and take a long walk down the crowded street (all in one unbroken shot) as he terrorizes everyone – stealing cigarettes, sandwiches, popping balloons, hitting babies, etc. Eventually, he’ll go even farther that that – and will be captured, and out on trial. He doesn’t speak a language anyone can understand – other than a bizarre French lawyer (Jean-François Balmer), who looks like a not too-distant relative. An extended courtroom scene follows – and drags the film to a halt, although you have to admire the persistence of putting it on the screen.

 

The overall best sequence is by Joon-ho Bong entitled Shaking Tokyo. It stars Teruyuki Kagawa as a hikikomori – that he is explains is someone who has retreated from society, and never ventures from their home anymore. He survives on money from his dad, and lives a regimented life – and has for 10 years – on routine, and no human contact. That is, until he makes eye contact with the pizza delivery girl one day – and then an earth quake that knocks her unconscious hits, and he has to care for her for a short period of time. Japan was a forerunner for this type of lonely, isolated young man – cutting himself off from the outside world, and wanting no human contact – but the rest of the world may well have caught up in the last decade. Of the three, it at least offers some hope – and also seems to be the one most grounded in reality.

 

The three films fit together in an odd way. They are all clearly made by outsiders from Tokyo, and they are about feeling like outsiders in Tokyo. Carax even goes so far that the two leads in his segment aren’t even Japanese at all. When I first saw this film – a decade ago – I didn’t much care for Carax’s segment. Perhaps I didn’t get it, or perhaps I was just annoyed by it. This time, I half liked it – everything leading up to the courtroom is excellent – but that courtroom scene still drags. I’m also a little less enamored with the whimsy of Gondry’s segment – and again, perhaps that’s because if the last decade has shown us anything about Gondry its that he really needs a harsher voice – like Charlie Kaufman (who he wrote his best film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with) or else his films become so lightweight they simply blow away. And I like Bong’s segment a little more – it really does seem the saddest, that someone would disappear so completely into themselves. And the finale, while hopeful, also shows how it isn’t an isolated issue.

 

None of them are as good as the director’s best work, and I do kind of wish that someone had presented a more positive view of the city – perhaps an insider. What the films ultimately ends up convincing you of it that you shouldn’t move to Tokyo – it’s just a group of sad, lonely people, monsters who come from the sewers, and chairs.

The Films of Bong Joon-ho: The Host (2006)

The Host (2006) 

Directed by: Joon-ho Bong.

Written by: Joon-ho Bong & Won-jun Ha & Chul-hyun Baek.

Starring: Kang-ho Song (Park Gang-Doo), Hee-Bong Byun (Park Hie-bong), Hae-il Park (Park Nam-il), Doona Bae (Park Nam-Joo), Ko Asung (Park Hyun-seo), Dal-su Oh (The Monster -voice), Jae-eung Lee (Se-jin), Dong-ho Lee (Se-joo), Je-mun Yun (Homeless Man).

 

The Host is a giant monster movie, a family drama, a social satire, a cautionary environment tale, and even a slapstick comedy all rolled into one. Those elements really should work together – they shouldn’t be able to c0-exist, without something being shortchanged. And yet, miraculously, they exist in perfect harmony in Bong Joon-ho’s magnificent film. It’s a film that will scare you, touch you emotionally, make you laugh and make you think – and it’s all rolled into one of the most entertaining packages imaginable. It’s a minor miracle of a movie.

 

The first scene in the film has an American scientist (of course) directing his Korean underling to pour formaldehyde – a lot of formaldehyde – down the drain, despite that underling’s protestations that it will all end up in the Han river. The river is vast he is told, so it won’t matter. A few years later, a couple of fisherman are in that river, and see a tiny creature that shouldn’t be – they are fascinated by it, but when it gets away, they don’t think too much about it. A few after that, that tiny creature has become huge – and hungry – and its preferred prey is people. So starts the greatest killer giant animal movie since Jaws.

 

The Host sees all this through the eyes of a single Korean family – the Parks. Gang-Doo (Kang-ho Song) is the irresponsible single father of a girl on the verge of teenage hood – Hyun-seo (Ko Asung). He still works for his father, Hie-bong (Hee-Bong Byun), who runs a small food store down by the Han river to anyone around. His sister, Nam-Joo (Doona Bae) is an expert archer – one of the best in Korea – although she seems to get in her own way too often to win the big competition. His brother Nam-il (Hae-il Park) is a college graduate, looking to get into business, but currently unemployed. They will be at the heart of every scene in the film – their somewhat troubled, but always loving relationship is the emotional core of the film.

 

Gang-Doo and Hyun-Seo are at that food store when the first attack by the monster happens. This is a comparatively low-budget film to Hollywood blockbuster, but Bong and company do a terrific job with the special effects. The first attack seemingly comes out of nowhere – at first, they simply see something hanging from a bridge, and have no idea what it is. It disappears into the water – and then is slowly revealed to be on the land – marauding through the crowd. To Gang-Doo’s credit, he doesn’t simply run away – he tries that, but it doesn’t work – but he also fights back against the creature, for all the good it does him. But he makes a critical mistake during the chaos – he grabs the hand of the wrong girl to try and lead to safety – and in the confusion, the monster grabs Hyun-Seo. But, he doesn’t kill her – instead it takes her to his strange, underground hideaway – likely to eat later – but not quite yet. The rest of the movie is the Park’s family desperate attempt to rescue her – and her own ingenious attempts to rescue herself.

 

The film weaves together a lot of different elements in its narrative. The family drama is set at a very high level – the scene at the mass funeral, when they are grieving for the apparently dead Hyun-seo is almost over-the-top in its physical comedy – which each family trying to outdo the others, to show just how much they cared about her. And yet, the family dynamic still feels real – still feels like this is a family, with all that petty infighting, giving way to something greater – they are there for each other when the chips are down.

 

But if you think all that comedy would make The Host any less scary, you’d be wrong, I’ve already mentioned the terrific opening attack – it’s a doozy – but every scene of little Hyun-seo (who will gain a friend – an even smaller boy who she protects) is downright terrifying. You never know when the monster will reappear – and what she’ll do when it does arrive. The scene where she tries to use the monster to get out of the pit is masterful – how Bong shows the result is a perfect reveal.

 

The film is exciting – it is a giant monster movie, and it doesn’t rob you of what you expect in that regard. The fight sequences with the monster throughout are brilliantly staged – the film doesn’t hide the monster, but also doesn’t make it front and center in everything it does. And throughout, there is certainly a social critique going on – a depiction of Korean bureaucracy that doesn’t really lend itself to any sort of concrete action to save anyone – or really, any real plan to combat the monster at all. It’s more than that of course – the prologue makes it clear that the film is also about America intervening in foreign countries – and the havoc that is so often the result. The film has more than a little of the original Godzilla in its DNA.

 

Mostly though, all those ideas wouldn’t matter without Bong’s execution of it all. Yes, he is aided greatly by the cast – who is able to sell the tonal shifts that could have otherwise become a distraction. But what marks the film is special is his visual imagination. He doesn’t try to hide the monster in darkness – most of the time, it’s right out there in broad daylight. And yet what he does do, is often introduce the monster from afar, or from off-screen, or the corner of the screen. It pops up when you don’t expect it to. That helps because the special effects budget clearly isn’t huge – but you never think of that when you see the film, because you’re so caught up in it all. The Host does a lot of things – all of them well – and it makes for a complex and hugely entertaining final product.

The Films of Bong Joon-ho: Influenza (2004)

Influenza (2004)

Directed by: Joon-ho Bong.

Starring: Yoon Jae-moon (Cho Hyuk-rae), Koo Soo-hee (Female Accomplice).

 

In 2004, Bong Joon-ho took part in an omnibus film about filmmakers producing digital shorts. Bong’s contribution – the 27-minute Influenza – is an odd film, and plays like exactly what it was – a talented filmmaker experimenting with a digital format, placing limitations on his style. It’s not a great film – but it’s an interesting one.

 

The concept of the film is that is traces the descent of Cho (Yoon Jae-moon) from a struggling salesman to a career criminal – as captured by Seoul’s vast network of CCTV cameras around the city. Even within this limited framework, Bong finds ways to make each sequence feel unique and distinct. Some of the scenes play without sound, some you can hear what is being said, some are in black and white, some color and in the most striking sequence, set in a parking garage, the camera slowly pans back and forth taking in the entire garage. If the rest of the sequences must have been fairly easy to block and shoot, this one must have been incredibly complex to ensure the camera is capturing what Bong wants at every moment.

 

When we first see Cho, he is practicing his sales pitch – he is selling “miracle glue” that is clearly not much of a miracle. He glues a can to a belt, and tells his imaginary audience that the seal will never be broken – although we see that seal broken again and again throughout his demonstration – before he is eventually dragged out of the bathroom by security.

 

From there, we see as him fall into a life of crime – with an escalating series of robberies. He scams an old woman at an ATM machine for example. He eventually gets a female accomplice – who is there when the robbery in the parking garage gets violent. The ending is once again at another ATM – this time, ending badly in many ways – and shows a dry run for Bong in terms of mob mentality, that we will see in his other films.

 

Influenza isn’t a particularly deep film – whatever happens to Cho to make him fall down that far isn’t really seen – he goes from would be salesman to criminal, quickly. He isn’t a deep character – and no one else really registers at all, except his nagging female accomplice. What it seems to be is Bong experimenting with style – experimenting with what he can do with a CCTV camera to capture this descent, and how many variations he can use. It does fit into his other films – his sympathy for the poor, his portrait of mob mentality, and others. But it feels like Bong experimenting. It’s fun to watch him experiment though.

Movie Review: Parasite

Parasite ***** / *****

Directed by: Joon-ho Bong.

Written by: Joon-ho Bong and Jin Won Han.

Starring: Kang-ho Song (Kim Ki-taek), Yeo-jeong Jo (Park Yeon-kyo), So-dam Park (Kim Ki-jung), Woo-sik Choi (Kim Ki-woo), Sun-kyun Lee (Park Dong-ik), Ji-so Jung (Park Da-hye), Hye-jin Jang (Kim Chung-sook), Jeong-eun Lee (Moon-gwang), Seo-joon Park (Min), Hyun-jun Jung (Park Da-song), Myeong-hoon Park (Geun-se).

 

Note: I am very glad I listened to all the critics who advised going into Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite cold – or at least as cold as possible – so I avoided all reviews or discussions on the film since its debut at Cannes back in May. That’s good advice for most films – but particularly here. So see Parasite ASAP – it is every bit as good as you’ve heard – but don’t read anything about it before hand. You’ve been warned.

 

Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is the Korean auteur’s best film to date – and the best distillation of what he’s basically been doing ever since his international breakthrough The Host – which is essentially to make a film that you start out thinking is escapist, genre fun and then eventually lowering the boom on the audience and revealing the tragedy at its core. Parasite is perhaps his most despairing film to date – the one that offers the least amount of hope for the future of its characters, or hell, humanity in general. In the world of Parasite there is the rich, and then there’s the rest of us – and no matter what we do, we’re screwed. Eventually, the only logical thing to do is to give up – stop making plans, because they don’t work out anyway. The best you can hope for is to survive.

 

Parasite begins as a very entertaining, dark comedy of sorts. It focuses on the Kim family – father Ki-taek (Bong regular Kang-ho Song giving his best performance for the auteur here) and mother Chung-sook (Hye-jin Jang) and unemployed, and basically have nothing except they’re crummy basement apartment – whose window looks out at an alley that bums use to piss in. Their two children are extremely intelligent and talented – but there’s no money to further their schooling. Son Ki-jung is basically treading water, even if his test scores are great, and daughter Ki-woo (Woo-sik Choi) is a gifted artist, but again, what can she do with that? They are handed a gift when an old friend of Ki-jung asks him for a favor – to take over as the English tutor for a rich high school girl, Da-hye (Ji-so Jung), because he has fallen for here, and doesn’t want to let any of his university friends slobber all over her as he studies aboard for the next year. He tells Ki-jung that the pay is good, and the mother, Yeon-kyo (Yeo-jeong Jo) is, well, kind of simple – although they have a ton of money. Thus begins the extremely entertaining first half of Parasite where the poor Kim family find ways, one at a time, to get hired by the wealthy Park family – in their beautiful modernist home, while lying to them about their identities throughout. Then comes a dark and stormy night – the return of who we thought was a minor character, and a trip to the basement that changes everything. All of a sudden, this black comedy of class warfare has become a horror movie we weren’t expecting. Where it goes from there, I won’t reveal here. Part of the fun is all the different twists and turns that drive the insane final hour of Parasite toward its tragic conclusion.

 

Bong has always been a great filmmaker – but I’m glad he went back to Korea for this film, rather than another international co-production like his last two films, Snowpiercer and Okja, which I think suffered a little bit from wanting to be bigger films – more blockbuster style filmmaking, rather than something like this, a more intimate, Hitchcock-ian thriller. There is something specifically Korean about this film – and this story – even if the themes are universal. The film is brilliantly well made – starting just from the production design, that creates not one, but two distinctive spaces - the Kim’s sad basement apartment, and the Park’s big, open concept mansion, both of which are space that drive home the themes of the movie. Bong’s camera placement here is also excellent – there is a shot here, on that first trip to the basement – that will haunt me forever.

 

What’s amazing about Parasite is just how entertaining a film it is. Even as the film grows darker and darker as it progresses, the film is among the most entertaining of the year to watch. It really isn’t until a scene late in the film – where Kang-ho Song admits that he has no plan that the weight of it all hits you. And even still, there’s a good 20 minutes to go here – a bloody climax, and then a heartbreaking final two shots. This is a film about class warfare – but one of the interesting things about it is that Bong doesn’t make the affluent Park’s into monsters – they are just wealthy people, with a limited perspective who don’t even realize what it is they are doing, and what impact it has. And for their part, the Kim’s are innocent either. What they are though is trapped – with no way out. And that is a very dangerous thing.

The Films of Bong Joon-ho: Memories of Murder (2003)

Memories of Murder (2003) 

Directed by: Joon-ho Bong.

Written by: Joon-ho Bong and Sung-bp Shim based on the play by Kwang-rim Kim.

Starring: Kang-ho Song (Detective Park Doo-man), Sang-kyung Kim (Detective Seo Tae-yoon), Roe-ha Kim (Detective Cho Yong-koo), Jae-ho Song (Sergeant Shin Dong-chul), Hee-Bong Byun (Sergeant Koo Hee-bong), Seo-hie Ko (Officer Kwon Kwi-ok), No-shik Park (Baek Kwang-ho), Hae-il Park (Park Hyeon-gyu), Mi-seon Jeon (Kwok Seol-yung), Young-hwa Seo (Eon Deok-nyeo).

 

With his second film, Bong Joon-ho directed his first masterpiece – even if people didn’t seem to quite realize it at the time. The film basically hit the festival circuit for two years, before getting a limited release in North America in 2005, where it didn’t make many waves – but has become a critical favorite since Bong has become an international star director in the wake of his follow-up film (The Host). This is a film that was Zodiac four years before David Fincher directed that masterpiece. And was a forerunner to a number of films in following years about crime, where the close the detectives look at a crime, they less they understand it – and the more obsessed they become, it doesn’t really help them.

 

The film takes place over years – starting in 1986, in rural Korea, where a girl is found raped and murdered in a ditch – and soon after, another woman is found raped and murdered in a field. Korea itself had very little experience dealing with serial killers at that time – and certainly Detective Park Doo-man (Kang-ho Song) has even less experience. He goes on gut instinct and brute force – when they have a suspect, he isn’t above beating a confession out of him, even if that suspect is a mentally handicapped teenager. Soon, though, a Detective from Seoul – Seo Tae-yoon (Sang-kyung Kim) is added to the team, and he has much different – more modern methods of going about the investigation. Not that it helps very much though. As the investigation drags on, more suspects emerge, more bodies are found – and yet, they are no closer to finding out who really committed the murders.

 

The film is a masterclass in tone control by Bong, and his terrific actors. Even though there are murders at the beginning of the film, many early scenes feel almost comic. Park and his partner Cho (Roe-ha Kim) are clearly inept at their job – Park claims he can tell if someone is guilty just by looking him in the eye, and no matter how often he is proven wrong, he keeps thinking the same damn thing. And if he isn’t above beating a confession out of a suspect, he’s a portrait of self-control compared to Cho – who flies into a rage right from the start, and delivers more than one drop kick in the movie, which is almost slapstick. That clash immediately with Seo – hell, they mistake him for a suspect, and beat him too when they first meet. And yet, neither approach to investigating work here.

 

As the film moves along, it gets less comedic. After all, the bodies are piling up – and we start to see some of the murders, including an incredibly haunting, tragic shot of a murder being committed in a forest, as the lights in the distant houses start to go out, one by one. The detectives are haunted by their failures – which of course, leads to more bodies. Some of those failures are theirs and theirs alone – some of them are because of happenstance, like when they need backup because they know the killer will be active, but a pro-democracy rally as taken all the other police out of their control. Suspects are brought in – and they aren’t beaten anymore. The questions start becoming more abstract, even existential.  

 

It’s amazing what this film does in that it makes Park into a truly tragic and yet sympathetic figure. At the start, we see him – see just how bad he is at his job. He is the worst kind of cop – he just wants to get a confession, one way or another. By the end of the film, he is a haunted, broken man. Kang-ho Song has worked with Bong three others times since this (The Host, Snowpiercer and Parasite) – and done brilliant work in other Korean films (Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine is a favorite of mine, but also Park-chan Wook’s Thirst) – but he is truly brilliant in this film.

 

The film starts as a strange police procedural about a serial killer – something we’ve seen so many times since at least 1991 with The Silence of the Lambs, that you have almost grown numb to it. But Bong switches things up from the start to grab your attention, and then simply dives deeper and deeper into the murk as the film moves along – getting at larger truths, both in terms of Korea specifically, and humanity in general. The cinematography by Hyung-Ku Kim is brilliant – using shadows as effectively as I have ever seen. It is quite simply a masterpiece.

The Films of Bong Joon-ho: Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000)

Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000) 

Directed by: Joon-ho Bong.

Written by: Joon-ho Bong and Ji-ho Song and Derek Son Tae-woong.

Starring: Sung-Jae Lee (Yun-ju), Doona Bae (Hyeon-nam), Hee-Bong Byun (Janitor), Su-hee Go (Jang-Mi), Ho-jung Kim (Eun-Sil Bae), Kim Roi-ha (Shadow Man), Kim Jin-goo (Granny).

 

Going back to watch the debut film of a filmmaker whose later work you love is always a doubled edged sword. On one level, you can see it with more generous eyes than if you saw as the work as an unknown – seeing seeds and themes and motifs that the director would go onto hone in their later films. On another level, it’s unfair to hold someone like Bong Joon-ho to the standard of The Host or Mother when you watch his first film – Barking Dogs Never Bite. As a film all on its own, it’s fine. But you can also see why the film never really made a splash in North America outside the festival circuit (and not even the major ones) and took a decade to come out on DVD here – and only then, because Bong had become a name. It is a film where you can see the seeds of some of what Bong would go onto do far better in his other films. But it’s also a film in which Bong seems to be trying too hard to shock you – something some of those other Korean directors tried, but Bong never really did. It’s an admirable first effort – but also quite clearly the weakest feature of his career.

 

This is the type of film that opens with a credit assuring you that no dogs would hurt during the making of this film – and its needed, because quite frankly, it’d be tough to stomach otherwise. The main character is Yun-ju (Sung-Jae Lee), who wants to become a University professor, but to do that requires money – which he doesn’t have – so right now he’s underemployed, and miserable. His wife Eun-sil (Ho-jung Kim) basically supports the couple all by herself – and does not let her husband forget it. Yun-ju is being driven mad by a constant barking dog of one of his neighbors in the apartment complex. He thinks he’s figured out the offending dog – and when he captures it, he first tries to throw it off the roof, then tries to hang it – but backs away both times, ending up locking it in a cabinet in the basement of the apartment instead. It is not the last dog that Yun-ju will try to dispose of in the film. Then there is Hyeon-nam (Doona Bae), a lazy office drone who works at the apartment, who dreams of herself being a hero. The missing dogs (yes, there will be more) give her a chance to try and act out her heroic fantasies by catching whoever is doing it, and bringing them to justice. The other major character is the Janitor of the office building (Hee-Bong Byun), a very poor man, who seizes on the opportunity of all these dead dogs to increase the meat intake in his diet. He won’t even be the only person eating dog in this movie.

 

So yeah, it’s that kind of movie – one with a lot of dog murder, and dog eating. But the film isn’t extreme in terms of the imagery, or even all that disturbing. Bong keeps things relatively comedic in tone – and while this is a dark comedy, it clearly is a comedy. It is a film that kind of runs out of steam in terms of its plot at some point – there are more dogs introduced, more shocking moments – but it’s all just basically there to keep things floating along.

 

There are some problems with the film. As many people have pointed out, there really isn’t a sympathetic character in the film – at least not among the major ones. They are all pretty horrible people – and even more of a problem, they are all fairly one note. Bong often has complicated characters – but not here. What is interesting in terms of what Bong would go on to do is the portrait of the apartment building as a whole – as a collective group of some kind. You certainly do see this in many of his films going forward – as well as his obvious sympathy for the downtrodden – those who have been left behind by society. In a fairly surprising turn, the character you feel the most sympathy for is the homeless man who eats dogs – who late in the film we see give a television interview after being arrested for all the dog murders (he didn’t commit) where he talks about how he likes jail – at least there, he is fed well. It is a classic Bong move to do that sort of thing with a character like that.

 

But overall, Barking Dogs Never Bite is merely an adequate film. It’s too long at nearly two hours, when even 90 minutes would probably be stretching it if we’re being honest. And once the premise is established, I’m not sure Bong does all that much with it until the end. It’s the type of film that probably would have been forgotten – if Bong hadn’t gone on too much greater things.

The Films of Bong Joon-ho: An Introduction

Bong Joon-ho made his debut film nearly 20 years ago, and since then has become one of the most interesting directors in the world. He was certainly part of the Korean New Wave, which made that country one of the hottest places for movies in the mid-2000s, although he’s always been somewhat different, somewhat less extreme than the likes of the great Park Chan-wook and the horrible Kim Ki-duk. He works at a measured, yet consistent pace – about every three years, we get a new film from him. Personally, I am more of a fan of some of his earlier films than the last two – both bigger budget, international films (Snowpiercer and Okja) – which are both still wonderful, just not quite as wonderful as Memories of Murder, The Host or Mother. I am happy that he is back, firmly in Korea, for his latest – Palme d’Or winning film Parasite, which is easily one of most anticipated films of the rest of the year, so I figured now was as good a time as any to revisit this interesting filmmaker.

 

Below is a ranking of the films – not including his debut, which I had never seen, or a short he directed in 2004 as part of a larger film, also because I had not seen it – but I will include it in the series. Once I’ve seen watched or re-watched all of his films – including Parasite (which I am seeing on the day it opens at the Lightbox – October 25^th), (update  - I was wrong about when I could see Parasite, so I'll have a review up this week - but the schedule for this series won't change). I’ll be back with a new ranking.

 

Not Ranked: Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000) and Influenza (2004) – Joon-ho Bong’s feature debut Barking Dogs, and the short he made are two I haven’t seen yet, so I’m looking forward to watching both.

 

6. Tokyo! Shaking Tokyo (2008) – It shouldn’t be possible that Bong gets together with Michel Gondry and Leos Carax to make an omnibus film, and the result is this forgettable. I’ve only seen this once – when it came out – and to be honest, it’s all kind of faded away. I’m open to being proven wrong with a re-watch, but for now it’s the one film of his I have completely forgotten.

 

5. Okja (2017) – The weakest of Bong’s features (that I’ve seen) is still wonderful – its ambitious and touching, and wonderfully well-made, with “eccentric” performances by the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal and Tilda Swinton and a larger international cast. I’m not quite sure it all comes together – but it does so much else, it doesn’t really matter.

 

4. Snowpiercer (2013) – Bong’s first international film – a dystopian sci-fi action film, where all of society is on a fast movie train, and the uprising it inspires. The whole film is brilliantly well-made, which car adding more wonderfully weird layers. I do think the film drops the ball in the end, which why it’s a little lower – but overall, a great film.

 

3. Mother (2009) – Bong’s follow-up to his international break-through The Host is a completely different film – and equally brilliant. The great Kim Jye-Ha gives one of the best performances you will ever see as a very committed mother, who will do whatever she has to protect her son – even if he is a murderer.

 

2. The Host (2006) – As far as giant monster movies go, The Host ranks right alongside the likes of Jaws as the best the genre has ever seen. As far as monster movies go, it is stylish and scary. It’s also a deeply felt family drama, as well as an intelligent film about how humanity brings this all on ourselves. This is genre film done right.

 

1. Memories of Murder (2003) – There were many films in the mid-2000s – like David Fincher’s Zodiac or Nuri Bilge Ceylon’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia or Corneliu Porumboiu’s Police Adjective among many others, in which people examine a crime deeply, and find the answers less and less clear. Before any of them, there was Memories of Murder – a brilliant crime drama about cops looking for a serial killer, and cannot find him. It’s haunting, brilliantly well-made and acted. It didn’t get the attention it deserved when it came out – but has become a classic since. It deserves even more.

Movie Review: Okja

Okja **** / *****

Directed by: Bong Joon Ho.

Written by: Bong Joon Ho and Jon Ronson.

Starring: Ahn Seo-hyun (Mija), Tilda Swinton (Lucy Mirando), Paul Dano (Jay), Jake Gyllenhaal (Dr. Johnny Wilcox), Byun Hee-bong (Heebong), Steven Yeun (K), Lily Collins (Red), Yoon Je-moon (Mundo Park), Shirley Henderson (Jennifer), Daniel Henshall (Blond), Devon Bostick (Silver), Choi Woo-shik (Kim), Giancarlo Esposito (Frank Dawson).

 

Bong Joon Ho’s Okja is not a perfect film by any means – yet, in its way, it shows why perfect films can sometimes be rather dull. The Korean auteur behind such great films as Memories of Murder (he least seen film, which is a shame, because it’s his best), The Host, Mother and Snowpiercer – has crafted something truly original and strange with Okja – a film that seemingly throws everything at the wall to see what will stick. Not everything does, of course, but I’d rather a film go for broke, and not quite stick the landing, than play it safe. Okja is by no means perfect, but it’s sure as hell memorable.

 

I’ve been struggling in coming up with a way to describe the film. It is a corporate satire, but also a dark children’s fantasy film. It’s got a clear political message against the factory farming of meat – and perhaps against eating meat at all, but it does find room to poke fun at people on all sides. It is a film that children would both relate to, and find utterly, completely horrifying. It feels like a large budgeted film for some bygone era in which they were allowed to contain ideas along spectacle. And man, is it ever strange.

 

Basically, the film revolves around a little girl in Korean named Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun), who lives in basically in the wilderness with her grandfather, a farmer. He was given the title character – Okja – a genetically modified “super pig” who will be part of a 10 year experiment, in which 10 of these pigs are distributed to farms around the world, to determine the best way to raise them in order to maximize their meat production. Mija and Okja are best friends – and do everything together, and trust each other – but when the 10 years expire, he’ll be given back to the company that created him. That is, unless Mija – with the help of an animal rights group – ALF – can save him.

 

Okja, the creature, is a triumph of special effects – he looks like a giant, black pig crossed with a hamster, but he truly does have one of the most expressive faces of a CGI creation I have seen. This is crucial, because Okja is essentially about the bond between him and Mija – how much he loves and trusts her, and the expressiveness in the first act helps solidify that bond – and the sheer pain and horror on his face in the latter half, are truly horrifying. Little Ahn Seo-hyun does a great job for a child actress as well, displaying the kind of single minded devotion to principle and her friend that you really only find in children – before the world crushes it out of them. The love between these two characters is really the subject of the film.

 

The adult performers are more a mixed bag. I’m not quite sure what the hell Jake Gyllenhaal is doing in his performance – he plays a child friendly celebrity spokesperson for the company that created the super pig, and the performance is purposefully broad, but I cannot help but think it’s too broad to be at all believable. You have to kind of admire his devotion to it though, don’t you? I did like Tilda Swinton, once again playing twins – the evil sister who is now the head of the company, and the even more evil sister who used to be head of the company, and wants back in. I feel like Paul Dano could have been better as the leader of ALF, had the screenplay given him slightly more to do – the film pokes gentle fun at his obsessiveness, but I fear Bong liked him too much to push that element into the extremism that I felt the movie wanted to go in. In fact, much of the ALF stuff kept feeling like it was going to go further, and never quite got there.

 

Still, Okja is a film packed with ideas, and unlike Bong’s last film Snowpiercer – I didn’t feel a letdown by the ending. The ending here is a happy one – I guess – but not too happy to sell out what has come before it. Nothing really has changed on the larger scale of the movie – but it has on the smaller one, which here makes a difference. The film was funded by Netflix, who has done a great job with getting their TV shows in the spotlight, but a terrible one doing the same for their movies. Okja hopefully changes that – and also, hopefully, serves as their model going forward – give a great director money and freedom to do whatever the hell they want.

Movie Review: Snowpiercer

Snowpiercer
Directed by: Joon-ho Bong.
Written by: Joon-ho Bong and Kelly Masterson based on Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob & Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette.
Starring: Chris Evans (Curtis), Kang-ho Song (Namgoong Minsoo), Ed Harris (Wilford), John Hurt (Gilliam), Tilda Swinton (Mason), Jamie Bell (Edgar), Octavia Spencer (Tanya), Ewen Bremner (Andrew), Ah-sung Ko (Yona), Alison Pill (Teacher), Luke Pasqualino (Grey), Vlad Ivanov (Franco the Elder), Adnan Haskovic (Franco the Younger), Emma Levie (Claude), Stephen Park (Fuyu), Clark Middleton (Painter), Marcanthonee Reis (Tim), Paul Lazar (Paul), Tómas Lemarquis (Egg-Head).

Bong Joon-ho has made his career taking what looks like a typical genre film and twisting it in subtle, refreshing and daring ways. His best – and perhaps least known (at least in North America) – Memories of Murder (2003) – was a Korean Zodiac, before Fincher made Zodiac. The Host (2006) was a brilliant giant monster movie that added layers of dark comedy, environmental messaging and family drama. Mother (2009) – was a brilliant thriller about a mother who will do anything to protect her son – until the shocking final revelation turned everything on its head. His latest film, Snowpiercer, is an allegory disguised as a blockbuster, dystopian sci-fi, action epic. If there is one thing wrong with Snowpiercer – and that’s a big if since the movie is for the most part great – it’s that I don’t think Bong really does much twisting this time around. You know what the movie is from the beginning, and it pretty much stays on that track from beginning to end – even the “twist” at the end is something that cannot be seen as too shocking, can it?

The film takes places 17 years after humanity, in an attempt to save the planet from global warming ends up freezing the entire planet by accident (thanks Al Gore!). Everyone on earth is dead, except for the few lucky survivors aboard a giant plane – the Snowpiercer – created by a mystery man who spends his time at the front of the train, and no one ever sees him. The train will never stop – apparently – but does have a brutal class structure – with desperate, poor, dirty people crammed in the back on the train, doing what they’re told, and eating on gelatinous “protein bars” (you don’t want to know what they’re made of). At the front of the train are the wealthy – who eat real food, have access to schools, to alcohol, to nightclubs, etc. The poor have revolted before, and failed, but they want to try it again. This time, they’re led by Curtis (Chris Evans) – whose backstory is shrouded with mystery. As he and he group move ahead, they learn more about the train, its history, and also about Curtis’ troubled history itself.

Structurally, the film is remarkable simple –the entire thing takes place on the one train, which advances, as mentioned, on car at a time. In each new car they enter they either learn something from the people in it, or have to fight their way through the people in it. Their first stop is to get “security expert” Namgoong Minsoo (Bong favorite Kang-ho Song) – who helped designed the train, and can get each new gate open. From their they find out how their food gets processed, how their water gets processed, have a few brilliantly staged fight sequences with the train’s armed guards (including a stunning one that includes a section in the dark), take Mason (a wonderfully weird Tilda Swinton) hostage to try and get what they want. Some of the stops are violent, some disturbing, some beautiful, some surreal. And one – where they discover an elementary school class, taught by a deranged teacher (Allison Pill – brilliant in her one scene) – all of them at once.

The entire movie is mainly one brilliant set piece after another. Bong is a brilliant director of action, suspense, who is also capable of getting great performances out of his cast – Evans has never been better, Swinton delivers at least her third great performance this year (after Grand Budapest Hotel and Only Lovers Left Alive), Pill continues to make the case that she deserves bigger roles and everyone else is just as good. The film shares some DNA with films like Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (which following the very different film, The Double, a few weeks ago is the second time I’ve evoked that film in a month – and just wait for my review of Gilliam’s latest, The Zero Theorem – coming soon) in terms of some of its visuals, and its outlook at the future.

 
For the most part, I loved every minute of Snowpiercer. Just a week after the great Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, we got another, large-scale, great dystopian sci-fi movie – (because it’s a foreign film people who claim to hate all blockbusters can love it too). My only real problem with the movie is that given what Bong has done in the past, I kept expecting him to do something wholly different at some point in Snowpiercer – some twist (not necessarily a narrative one) – and take Snowpiercer in a daring new direction, and he never really does. He stages the final few scenes for shock value, but there is nothing all that surprising. That, along with the fact that his dialogue is at times a little too on the nose – are the only two real problems I have with what is otherwise a thrilling movie. I know it’s available to everyone on demand right now – but the visuals of this film demand to be seen on a big screen if possible. It may not be Bong’s best film – but it’s still a wonderful film.