What Are the Social Classes in Post-Apocalyptic Thriller 'Snowpiercer'?

The TNT adaptation of Bong Joon Ho's suspenseful flick Snowpiercer may reboot the post-apocalyptic dystopian thriller, but if you want to get the full experience, you should watch the original movie first. The 2013 sci-fi movie is based on a French graphic novel that takes place aboard a train named (you guessed it) Snowpiercer. Running on a track that spans the length of the globe, it carries the last bastion of humanity after a new Ice Age has begun. Things are pretty bleak, as a consequence.

On the train, the lower-class tail section contains poorer passengers, the "bottom" of society, while the elite, rich passengers are at the front of the rain. The lower-class passengers must lead a revolt against those in the front. Like Bong Joon Ho's biting commentary on social classes in Parasite, Snowpiercer attempts to tell the same story with its characters in the front and back of the train. In the event you haven't seen the film or want to learn more, we've got it all laid out for you.

For the last bastion of humanity on the circumnavigational Snowpiercer train, the rich get to live in the extravagant, awesome-looking front cars with plenty of space and resources. They have everything they need and live in comfort and excess, even during this snowy apocalypse. The poorer masses, however, live in the back of the train, and are forced into tail compartments and kept watch over by armed guards. Obviously, this causes unrest among those forced to live as "lower-class" individuals. 

There are only really two groups to remember: the front and back of the train. The class segregation, however, can't last. The eventual leader of the train's revolution, Curtis Everett (Chris Evans) and his partner Edgar (Jamie Bell) eventually realize that the guards watching over the poorer class are holding guns with no ammo inside. That sets in motion a chain of events that changes the train's class system forever. The rich can't be tyrants any longer without ammunition. 

Everett, Edgar, and a security specialist named Namgoong (Song Kang-ho) lead the passengers of the tail to freedom by way of a bloody coup as the revolutionaries build up a tail army. Gradually, they work their way to the front section of the train. What ensues is a mind-bending set of events that end up changing the way that life flows onward on the train. Without giving anything away, there's no way you'll be able to predict what happens next, so you'll just have to watch it all play out.

Director Bong Joon Ho is a master of suspense as well as intriguing twists, and Snowpiercer is rife with plenty of its own. Whether the rich class or the poor class is onscreen, there's always electric adrenaline flowing through every scene. The adventure will continue in the TNT spinoff, but this is an excellent film that everyone deserves to see at least once.