Fans of “The Host” and “Memories of Murder,” which are two South Korean films that easily qualify for being the best of examples of their respective genres ever put to film, may not necessarily have been waiting with baited breath for the Hollywood debut of the director of those movies, but you always want to see what a great foreign language moviemaker could do with Hollywood money and backing. Bong Joon-Ho directed both those Korean films and his first foray into the world of Hollywood style studio management is going to be a film called “Snow Piercer.”
Thankfully, “Snow Piercer” will be yet another collaboration between one of the greatest directors working today and, arguably, the greatest film actor working today: Song Kang-Ho. “Snow Piercer” will be an adaptation of a French graphic novel titled “Le Transperceneige” co-written by Bong Joon-Ho and another great Korean film director Park Chan-Wook. The latest word is that Chris Evans, “Captain America” himself, has been added to the cast.
What remains to be seen is whether Bong Joon-Ho can break what is a long tradition of foreign filmmakers being brought to Hollywood on the wings of foreign language masterpieces only to have everything that makes those movies great brought into question and undermined by the Hollywood mindset. If you go back to the first few decades of talkies, foreign language directors were brought into the Hollywood studio system with little to no problems. Around the rise of the concept of the auteur, however, things took a distinctly sour turn.
Ingmar Bergman’s experience dealing with Hollywood money produced “The Serpent’s Egg.” The first indication of problems was the casting of David Carradine. Not to take anything away from Carradine, who could be positively spellbinding in the right role, but just the idea of the guy who made “The Seventh Seal” teaming up with the guy from “Kung Fu” never quite felt right. “The Serpent’s Egg” is by no means a disaster, but if you ever get a chance to read the story about the making of the movie, you really should take advantage of it. And then, if you should ever get the chance to relate that story to a Hollywood power broker considering bringing a foreign language director out to the Coast, you should take advantage of the opportunity.
Of course, compared to the Hollywood career of John Woo, Ingmar Bergman’s excursion into the land of cinema as commodity looks like something along the lines of Fritz Lang. John Woo set himself up as one of the most interesting action film directors of all time before being lured to Hollywood to see what he could do with Jean-Claude Van Damme. One might well be tempted to say the answer to that proposition was “not much” but “Hard Target” looks like Bergman compared to “Face/Off.” This action movie, in which the final action sequence is STILL going on, may well be the single most useless piece of film released to theaters in the 1990s. There are, obviously, some people who enjoy “Face/Off” but then again there are also some people who enjoyed the Star Wars Holiday Special, so that’s certainly no argument.
One doubts that “Snow Piercer” will be a repeat of that disaster. For one thing, Bong Joon-Ho is about a million times more talented than Woo. For another, with Song Kang-Ho and Chris Evans, the film won’t feature one of the most overrated actors of all time and what may well be regarded as the jumping off point for the downfall of Nicolas Cage. I, for one, am looking forward to “Snow Piercer.” With baited breath.
For more from Timothy Sexton, check out these English-language articles:
Song Kang-Ho: Best Actor in the World Today
“Memories of Murder” Best Serial Killer Movie Ever
“The Host” Best Monster Movie Ever