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Channeling Thatcher:Tilda Swinton as a fuedal ruler in Snowpiercer.

Another is Tanya (Octavia Spencer),who is driven to recover a five-year-old son taken by the authorities without reason in what is the latest everyday outrage. The boy,a “train baby” who talks of the “whole wide train” instead of the whole wide world,is seemingly treated as a possession by uncaring rulers who have descended into feudal rule under the command of Mason (Tilda Swinton,aged with make-up and channeling Margaret Thatcher).

Always moving left to right,from one carriage to the next,Bong creates brutal battle scenes marked by striking revolutionary imagery. Like Sergei Eisenstein’sBattleship Potemkin,or Gillo Pontecorvo’sThe Battle of Algiers,Snowpiercer makes the fight for freedom thrilling:when Curtis calls for fire to light a desperate confrontation,the naked flame is carried by differing hands through the carriage in a desperately impassioned relay.

The supporting cast is full of juicy,unexpected roles,most notably a disaffected former security expert,Namgoong Minsu (Song Kang-ho),released from the jail car along with his otherworldly daughter Yona (Go Ah-sung),and tasked with opening doors in exchange for Kronoll,the drug of choice for the upper class. A bored enforcer,Franco the Elder (Vlad Ivanov),never speaks,but his disdain for those he punishes says much about the train’s terrible inequality.

As withThe Host,Bong’s 2006 South Korean success,Snowpiercer suggests that technology and power run amok when left unchecked:the reclusive Wilford and his engine are literally worshipped by the inhabitants of the front carriages – “Wilford is divine,” Mason swears – and the journey towards the front becomes increasingly surreal as new environments are revealed.

The film doles out backstory and motivation with slow certainty,so that it takes much of its running time to realise why Curtis has such self-doubt. Evans is best known as Marvel’s Captain America,a character he began as heroic and has slowly turned to an outsider,and his gift for quiet unease underpins his desperation here,especially opposite Swinton’s ruling crone,who wears medals to a slaughter as if attending an official ceremony.

Snowpiercer is also a comic-book movie,but it has a strong sense of the sad truths that mark all struggles for power – both sides are savage towards each other,with the most terrifying scenes mere discussions at the end that suggest everything is a fix,creating a balance of anxiety and terror where everyone is playing their pre-ordained role.

Moving the camera from the middle of melees to calm master shots,Bong has made an unorthodox but vital hybrid,a science-fiction adventure reduced to an empathetic,human scale and crafted with the filmmaker’s own distinct vision. The world has ended in film after film in recent years,but rarely has the aftermath been such impressive viewing.

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