Korean director Bong Joon-ho's English language debut is the year's best post-apocalyptic thriller. Elizabeth Kerr reports. 

There's no denying that the so-called post-apocalypse is "in". The fractured and corrupted future - be it economically, environmentally, socially or all three - that we all seem to believe is in our future, is everywhere. We see it on television (The Walking Dead,Revolution), in the movies (The Hunger Games,Elysium), in literature (young adult trilogies,The Passage,The Road), gaming (The Last of Us,Gears of War) and even music. If Kanye West's Send it Up and Imagine Dragons' Radioactive aren't the soundtrack for the dystopia, nothing is. Unlike vampires, which have sort of, um, bled out, our collective trepidation about the future is keeping the apocalypse alive and well. 

That brings us toSnowpiercer, which admittedly sounds ridiculous: A perpetual motion engine train circumnavigates the globe for all eternity, carrying the remnants of humanity, wiped out by an ice age kick-started by a cure for global warming. But the craziest ideas are often the ones that work best, particularly when they're played straight and have something to say beneath the ridiculous shell. And such is the case withSnowpiercer. 

Based on the French comic bookLe Transperceneige, the$40 million dystopian thriller isSouth Korea's biggest movie gamble ever. It's also a gamble of sorts for director Bong Joon-ho, who follows compatriots Park Chan-wook and Kim Jee-woon down the English language/Hollywood path (clearly no one consulted Ringo Lam first). The moody and painfully artistic aesthetic of the esoteric and obliqueStoker, an exemplar of Park (Oldboy,Thirst), failed to excite mass audiences overseas (meaning theUS). In fairness, Stokerwasn't very good on any continent, so hopes were higher when Kim (A Bittersweet Life,I Saw the Devil) unleashed his brand of high impact, violent action on viewers - with Arnold Schwarzenegger along for the ride inThe Last Stand. That was a well-constructed and underrated pulp actioner, but it didn't do any better (meaning, in theUS). As long as his English territory distributor doesn't make too much of a mess, Bong (the stellar creature featureTheHost, the pitch blackMemories of Murder) should break the curse. 

Bong is a filmmaker who understands genre, and better still he understands how to infuse drama into genre, however unsubtle he may be;The Host's "toxins in the water are making monsters" was a jab at the US military presence in South Korea. His zigzagging career makes him the ideal filmmaker to win over mass audiences (which he has in Asia-Pacific and Europe so again, theUS) and he's done it the easy way: He's made a Korean film. Bleak, rooted in revenge and narratively unapologetic,Snowpiercerisn't for everyone - even fans of dystopian entertainment-but at the very least it's worth seeing how artists with a vision can do just fine without a budget three or four times bigger. 

It's 2031, and after 17 years on the Wilford Industries ark/train, old habits have, unsurprisingly, reasserted themselves. The poor, huddled masses (AKA the 99%) are crammed into the tail sections, while the rich live in relative luxury at the front. The ruling elite and their jackbooted army keep the dregs fed on mysterious protein bars, obedient and silent despite their exploitation. Curtis (Captain America's Chris Evans) has had enough, and leads a clutch of rebels in a quest to "take the engine" and impose a little equality. His allies are a junkie security expert who designed the train's door locks (Bong regular, Song Kang-ho, spectacular as usual), the mother of a kidnapped child (Octavia Spencer,The Help) and Curtis's best mate (Jamie Bell). The spiritual leader of the rebellion is the one-armed, one-legged Gilliam (John Hurt), the elder statesman who fosters Curtis' conscience. 

Snowpierceris grim stuff that makesThe Hunger Gameslook like Disney fare, and it gets grimmer with each door the insurgents pass through. Guilt, redemption, class warfare and social engineering by the powerful, to the detriment of the weak are among the Big Ideas Bong wrestles against, ironically pushing ecological catastrophe to the back burner. There are layers upon layers of deceptions, and humiliations are swapped back and forth between Curtis and his nemesis, minister Mason (Tilda Swinton), each equally devoted to their cause. Swinton's performance - grandiose, frantic, hilarious - will be adored and reviled for the same reasons, but as the despotic public face of mysterious train engineer Wilford ("Wilford is DIVINE!") and his new world order she's indispensible. Never has the command to "Be a shoe" sounded so motivating. 

But Bong is also a master of brilliantly staged set pieces and action sequences, and things are no different here. Confined to claustrophobic train cars (granted, a super train), Bong andCinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo build a series of spaces that move the story and tell you something about the world. Steerage has the gray, industrial, crowded feel of low-end Victorian London. The schoolroom in first class is an orgy of bright, brainwashing color. A candlelit clash between rebels and soldiers is somehow more brutal for what can't be seen clearly in the warm glow. The sauna is all relaxing Zen, making the quiet eruption of violence a shocking counterpoint. 

IsSnowpiercerperfect? No. It goes off the rails a bit technically when the train goes off the rails, looking like the CGI it is, and as with all speculative fictions there are little plot points that don't' always make sense (why does the train have to go so fast?), but those are minor quibbles. Bong and co-writer Kelly Masterson (who wrote Sidney Lumet's last corker,Before the Devil Knows You're Dead) have created a vivid, wrenching, believable dystopia that you can almost smell from your seat (kudos to production designer Ondrej Nekvasil as well). Holding it all together is Evans in a revelatory and, given his Marvel ties, daring performance. Angry, apprehensive and fearful of his own capacity for barbarism, Evans' imperfect Curtis is visibly exhausted by both the expectations laid at his feet and the weight of his past. You'll never look at CaptainAmericathe same way.