From the first review, Joon-ho Bong’s Snowpiercer looks to be a hit. “Enormously ambitious, visually stunning and richly satisfying,” writes Scott Foundas in Variety, singling out the Czech production design for praise:
“Built on gimbals on a series of interconnected soundstages at Prague’s Barrandov Studios, the train itself is a triumph of visual imagination for Bong and production designer Ondrej Nekvasil (The Illusionist), with each successive car revealing a new, surprising facet of this eerie, self-sustaining ecosystem: one a lush greenhouse, another a giant aquarium, yet another a Disney-on-acid classroom…”
Nekvasil holds an Emmy Award for his work on U.S. miniseries Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001). He also designed sets for Neil Burger’s 2006 film The Illusionist and for the 2012 U.S. series Missing.
Korean director Bong shot Snowpiercer in the Czech Republic last year, mainly at Barrandov Studios and the KCD Vysočany stages in Prague. A co-production between the U.S., Korea and France, the film is based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige, a post-apocalyptic story about a wandering train and its passengers. It features Chris Evans, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, Octavia Spencer, Tilda Swinton, Ewen Bremner and Korean star Kang-ho Song in the main roles.
Snowpiercer opens August 1 in Korea. The Weinstein Co. will release the film in English-speaking territories at a date yet to be announced.
Read Variety’s full review here ˃