After a prolonged fight between director Bong Joon-ho and American distributor The Weinstein Company, the U.S. will finally have a chance to see the sci-fi film Snowpiercer.  The good news?  The Weinstein Company has agreed to release the uncut version to theaters this weekend.  The bad news?  It’s limited to 150 theaters as a test to see if the uncut version will go into wide release, according to Blastr.
 

The film, based on the first volume of the French bande dessinée that Titan Comics translated into English earlier this year (see "'Snowpiercer' GN Releases for Movie"), was released internationally last  year, and has grossed  $80 million worldwide according to BoxOfficeMojo ($59 million in director Bong Joon-ho’s native South Korea, despite being filmed in English).  
 
Bong fought the Weinstein Company on its plans to make a shorter version--a tighter "action" cut, which deleted 20 minutes of footage and added a voice-over to "explain" the movie to dumb American audiences who might not get the sophisticated material, the director told /Film recently.
 
The film chronicles the survivors of humanity 18 years after the planet was accidently plunged into another ice age.  The survivors live on a massive train, the Snowpiercer, powered by a perpetual-motion engine on a globe-spanning track.  A class system has developed, where the elites inhabit the decadent front of the train, while the poor suffer in the tail.  The inhabitants of the tail section have attempted rebellion before and been put down.  However, this time may be different.