How Train to Busan chan­nels the social pan­ic of Snowpiercer

In recent years two South Kore­an direc­tors have sharply nib­bled away at the effect that both finan­cial dis­par­i­ty and pol­lu­tion are hav­ing on our plan­et, bring­ing us post-apoc­a­lyp­tic visions of the future set on high-speed trains head­ed for dis­as­ter. Both cut close to the bone when it comes to the way greed can have dev­as­tat­ing effects on the envi­ron­ment and basic human rights, but they also show a glim­mer of hope through their respec­tive heroes and hero­ines who pluck up the courage to ques­tion the system.

In 2013, Bong Joon-ho adapt­ed Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette’s graph­ic nov­el ​‘Snow­piercer’. Set in 2031 on a train designed to pro­tect the last sur­vivors of the human race, it sees a can­ni­bal and a drug addict amongst oth­ers help to save human­i­ty. The poor inhab­it the tail end of the train which has been con­stant­ly spin­ning round death­ly cold land­scapes for sev­en­teen years. They munch on gooey black pro­tein bars and live in cramped con­di­tions while an elite few spend their days feast­ing on fine food and par­ty­ing in their grand quarters.

A fren­zied class-war erupts when those at the back of the train realise the rich at the head have final­ly run out of bul­lets and their guns no longer pose a threat. At the front sits dri­ver and engi­neer Wil­ford (Ed Har­ris), who advis­es rev­o­lu­tion­ary leader Cur­tis (Chris Evans), ​“every­one has their pre­or­dained posi­tion, and every­one is in their place apart from you.”

In Train to Busan, Yeon Sang-ho envi­sions the end of the world com­ing about via swarms of blood­thirsty zom­bies who roam the earth due to an out­break caused by a dis­hon­est biotech cor­po­ra­tion. When father and daugh­ter, Seok Woo (Yoo Gong) and Soo-an (Soo-an Kim), set aboard the KTX101 from Seoul bound for Busan, they leave behind them a city on the brink of col­lapse. When one of the infect­ed scam­pers on board just before depar­ture it leads to com­plete chaos inside the car­riages with the pas­sen­gers fight for sur­vival show­ing the best and worst sides of humanity.

On board the Snow­piercer bru­tal penal­ties for fail­ure to adhere to strict and sadis­tic rules are car­ried out by the wicked Mason (Til­da Swin­ton, mis­chie­vous­ly chan­nelling the essence of a cer­tain for­mer British Prime Min­is­ter) who freezes limbs as pun­ish­ment and wax­es lyri­cal in long speech­es about how the poor should be grate­ful for what they are giv­en. On the KTX101, a rich busi­ness­man feeds the pas­sen­gers lies and manip­u­lates them in to cor­don­ing off a group of peo­ple who he sug­gests may be infect­ed. They fol­low his lead in order to pro­tect them­selves. In these dark days the height­ened rep­re­sen­ta­tions of soci­ety don’t seem so absurd and ring depress­ing­ly true.

Chil­dren play key roles in both films. Su-an is shocked and sad­dened at the adults’ behav­iour on the com­muter train, her father includ­ed, who advis­es her to only look out for her­self in such dire times. Her good deeds through­out her jour­ney help to qui­et­ly dri­ve against self­ish atti­tudes and in turn the pack men­tal­i­ty. Her deter­mined sense of altru­ism even­tu­al­ly trav­els into her father’s conscience.

The chil­dren on board the Snow­piercer lit­er­al­ly end up as cogs in the engine, they are essen­tial in the run­ning of the train but are vic­tims of a cru­el struc­ture they had no part in cre­at­ing. They blind­ly fol­low orders, and Bong Joon-ho hints at how the young can be brain­washed into mak­ing the same mis­takes as their fore­fa­thers. Cur­tis’ jour­ney is a tad more com­plex than Soo-an’s in that he has to relearn how to be self­less, and only at the very last minute does he under­stand how much sac­ri­fice is real­ly involved in sav­ing the world.