— Overview
The essay is less a class-war recap than a study of who helps whom, who blocks whom, and what kind of future each man thinks he owes the next generation.
— Contents and key concepts
A train, and people sorted by what they do to one another
A Korean essay on Bong Joon-ho’s 2013 film Snowpiercer does not begin with a complete plot. It begins with a tool: an actant model, a way of asking what function a person serves in the story. The film, loosely drawn from the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige, is set on a train that has become a world, with Wilford, played by Ed Harris, as the one who built it and keeps it running, and with Curtis, played by Chris Evans, leading people from the tail against that order.
Minister Mason, played by Tilda Swinton, is placed on the side of the opponent. She is, in the essay’s account, the person who actually suppresses the tail in Wilford’s name, and who handles the force used against Curtis. The contrast is practical, not only symbolic. Someone has to do the work of keeping the rear cars down.
Gilliam’s arm, and a helper who becomes an example
Gilliam, played by John Hurt, is placed on the side of the helper. The essay notes that he gives up an arm to protect Edgar, played by Jamie Bell, and that this act becomes a decisive reason for Curtis to take him as a model and as a kind of spiritual support. The point is not a catalogue of injuries. It is that a revolt, in the essay's account of the film, is also a chain of people who keep one another alive long enough to go forward.
The essay’s bibliography includes Korean essays on the train’s technical and class system and on actants in the story’s structure. The student piece does not try to replace those studies. It uses their vocabulary to keep the functions of Mason and Gilliam in view.
Two ethical visions, and a future that still has to be lived
The essay then turns to what it calls the protagonists’ different new ethical visions. Namgoong Minsu, played by Song Kang-ho, is set beside Curtis. The train’s power, its conflicts, and the possibility of taking the system apart are not, in this account, a single slogan. They are questions about what one owes the people who would have to live after the present order, including an ethics aimed at later generations.
The writer does not pretend to settle which vision is right. The work of the essay is to keep the two of them visible, and to refuse to treat the train as only a spectacle of cold and hunger. A longer Korean version of this account is on CampusDown.
Sources
- A student essay on Bong Joon-ho’s 2013 film Snowpiercer, read through an actant model and through the ethical visions of Curtis and Namgoong Minsu.
Last updated 15 November 2026
Frequently asked questions
Who made Snowpiercer, and who plays the two men the essay holds in view?
Bong Joon-ho directed the 2013 film, loosely from the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige. Chris Evans plays Curtis, who leads a revolt from the tail; Song Kang-ho plays Namgoong Minsu. Ed Harris plays Wilford, who built and keeps the train; Tilda Swinton plays Minister Mason, who enforces his order.
What is the ‘actant model’ doing in the essay?
It is a way of sorting people by function. Mason is read as the one who actually suppresses the tail in Wilford’s name and handles the force that puts Curtis down. Gilliam, who gives up an arm to protect Edgar, is read as a helper and as a moral support that Curtis can take as an example.
What ethical contrast does the essay draw?
Between Namgoong Minsu and Curtis: two visions of what should be done with the train’s power, its conflicts, and the possibility of taking the system apart, including an ethics aimed at the generations that would come after.
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