Brief Story Line
Due to global warming in 2014, the earth had been transformed into frozen land and was inhabitable for humans. Wilford Industries who foresaw this, built Snowpiercer, a train consisted of 1001 cars that could circle the globe and sustain people's life who were willing to pay handsomely. Inside the train, there were people living in First class with all the best perks, Second class with less comfort, Third class for working people who had to ensure the train operating properly and compensated by living in Snowpiercer for free. However, there were also illegal passengers who filled up the tail sections, obviously without having any benefits at all and had to survive with the bare minimum.
The story focused on the struggle of the tail people (referred to as Tailies) led by Andre Layton (Daveed Diggs - Blindspotting, Hamilton etc) supported by Josie (Katie McGuinness) and few others who wanted to do a revolution in order to have the same living quality on the train. Meanwhile the Hospitality department led by Melanie Cavill (Jennifer Connelly - Alita: Battle Angel, A Beautiful Mind etc) and her deputy Ruth (Alison Wright - The Americans TV series etc) were trying their best to ensure smooth operation and keep all passengers happy. There were also people who maintain order and referred to as Brakeman and Jackboots (soldiers) where one of the Brakeman, Bess Till (Mickey Sumner) was a person with high moral compass.
In the Third class section there was a car which was created as a place where people could have fun without being judged. It was maintained by a Madam named Miss Audrey (Lena Hall) and bartender Zarah (Sheila Vand). Aside from those, there were also some people who were crucial to the train operations such as the head engineer Bennet (Iddo Goldberg - Salem TV series etc), agricultural officer Jinju (Susan Park), Till's partner Osweiller (Sam Otto) and Brakeman leader Roche (Mike O'Malley - Glee TV series etc). So what would happen to all these people who have been in Snowpiercer for 7 years? Find them all in this interesting series.
End of Brief Story Line
As I mentioned earlier, I liked the original 2013 movie which was directed by Bong Joon-ho (director of multiple award winning movie Parasite who happens to be one of the executive producer of this series) and based on the French graphic novel titled Le Transperceneige created by Jacques Lob & Jean-Marc Rochette. Therefore I was definitely intrigued to watch this one. The series was said to be a reboot with totally different characters although some aspects remain the same. Oh it was also set 7 years after the global warming as opposed to the movie which was 17 years. So I guess the series creator decided to go in different direction from the movie version.
The first half of the series was more like introduction to the main characters and the different classes on Snowpiercer, combined with a mystery solving which made it very intriguing. But once we got to the second half, the story suddenly changed to more intense and suspenseful with lives at stake. And it culminated to a wonderful climax. The season finale had a major surprising twist which made me totally anxious awaiting for the second season. It only consisted 10 episodes with standard duration of between 44-51 minutes. Hence it should not take too long to finish it.
A series with post-apocalyptic setting usually would have the element of how the remaining survivors live and there would always be a struggle for power in it. This one used the same formula and somehow it reminded me of the series The 100 about the struggle of people on earth after nuclear war. Except that one was set on various places while this series set only on the train. The special effects were not too spectacular, but adequately served its purpose. I also like the action sequence here. There were some brutal fights and killings and the violence were pretty graphic with blood spattering shown quite a lot, so just be ready for them if you watch this.
The strength of the series were definitely the wonderful performance from the 2 lead cast, Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs. They were quite amazing. The rest of the cast (there were too many of them for me to write each and every one) were generally OK. And with so many people on the train, there was definitely going to be some romance as well to add spice on the main plot. Btw, I also noticed some familiar faces in here that I have seen in other series, though they played in supporting roles.
Overall this was an interesting series. It has a good premise combined with some surprising twists and some actions plus the general fight for humanity, making this one worthy to watch. Although if you prefer the intensity of the original movie, you might not get it entirely in here due to the different approach and obviously longer time for the build up. I myself liked this one and prefer not to compare it with the movie. However, I could also understand if some people did not exactly approved it (as could be seen in the mixed reviews and ratings). It probably had too much weigh from the movie version especially with the name Bong Joon-ho. So if you want to see a post-apocalyptic dystopian series with setting on a moving train and the struggle of survivors on it, then you can give this a try. You might even enjoy it.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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