Pop quiz, hotshot: What happens if you take the co-director of Shin Godzilla, give him the premise of Speed and the bones of the classic 70s Japanes
Pop quiz, hotshot: What happens if you take the co-director of Shin Godzilla, give him the premise of Speed and the bones of the classic 70s Japanese action thriller that inspired it, and stump up some solemn Netflix moolah to let him fully off the leash? Answer: Bullet Train Explosion. Yes, having gotten his kaiju on with substantial lad twofer Shin Godzilla and Shin Ultraman over the last near-decade, filmmaker Shinji Higuchi’s latest is an incredibly does-what-it-says-on-the-tin titled Netflix remake of Jun’ya Satô’s 1975 joint Bullet Train. The set-up is basic — there’s a bomb hooked up to a Shinkansen train that’ll detonate if its speed drops below 100km/h, and there’s a ransom being demanded by the nutter who rigged it — and the trailer’s a doozy. Check it out below;
Sweeping drone shots, fraught passengers and even more fraught crew, and, sure enough, some substantial ol’ bullet train explosions abound in this low but punchy first look at Higuchi’s movie, which remarkably was actually made in collaboration with the East Japan Railway Company to ensure authenticity. (Well, as much authenticity as you can get from Speed on a train, anyway.) Japanese Academy Award winner Tsuyoshi Kusanagi leads the line-up for this one as embattled but unbowed train conductor Kazuya Takaichi, who’s the Hayabusa No. 60’s first port of call for passengers, crew, transport control, and the mysterious bomber, and he’s joined by conductor Fujii (Kanata Hosoda), driver Matsumoto (Non), House of Representatives member Kagami (Machiko Ono), YouTuber Todoroki (Jun Kaname), and student Yuzuki Onodera (Hana Toyoshima), all of whom contribute to Higuchi’s fast-moving, almost Snowpiercer-esque microcosm of Japanese society.
And here’s the official synopsis for the movie: “Tension mounts aboard the Tohoku Shinkansen Hayabusa No. 60, bound for Tokyo, where a bomb is rigged to instantly detonate if the train’s speed drops below 100 km/h. As panic grips the passengers following the announcement of conductor Takaichi (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi), the crew, passengers, and the Shinkansen General Operation Control Center race against time to avert disaster.”
Bullet Train Explosion — or, as we like to call it, The Train That Couldn’t Slow Down — is scheduled to make its next station stop on Netflix on 23 April. Brace yourselves!
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