LOS ANGELES, April 23 (UPI) -- Bullet Train Explosion, on Netflix Wednesday, captures the thrill of a diverse ensemble of characters working together, and sometimes against each other, in a crisis. The film balances action and drama like the classic disaster movies of the '70s and '90s.
Tsuyohshi Kusanagi plays Takaichi, the conductor of a train to Tokyo that happens to be hosting Yuzuki Onodera's (Hana Toyoshima) high school class on a field trip.
Other passengers include disgraced politician Kagami (Machiko Ono), influencer Todoroki (Jun Kaname) and mysterious Goto (Satoro Matsuo), whose backstory will be revealed later. When the JR East Railway call center receives a bomb threat, the operators spring into action, with politicians creating more hurdles.
Writers Kazuhiro Nakagawa and Norichika Oba, adapting the 1975 film Bullet Train, effectively introduce the major characters on the train and in the control room. Director Shinji Higuchi also establishes the geography of the train route, as its details will become factors in the story.
Elsewhere, the bomber blows up a freight train to prove they're a serious threat. They warn that the bomb on the Tokyo-bound passenger train will detonate if the train slows below 100 miles per hour, representing an increase from the original film's 80 kmph, along with Speed's 50 mph bus.
It is refreshing to see the train company clear all the tracks and disable the automatic train controls, which normally slow to 75 mph when approaching stations. Competence is underrated and often feels like a fantasy.
On-screen text in both Japanese and English identifies the towns and stations the train is passing. Trying to keep the passengers calm, Takaichi blames missing the first stop on a vague operational issue but that excuse only flies once.
The script invents several impending obstacles that the train company and conductors have to overcome, while drama unfolds between the passengers. Todoroki crowdfunds the ransom demand, which is problematic because if he raises the ransom money, he's negotiating with terrorists.
In the control center, General Commander Yuichi Kasagi (Takumi Saitoh) and police battle Hayashi (Daisuke Kuroda) from the Prime Minister's office to approve their plans to avert disaster. The political bureaucracy slows down a crisis that already has a time limit, because the train will reach the end of the line eventually.
The politician also adds the element of the government considering the political advantages of various options while gambling with people's lives.
Some of those thrilling sequences with high speed trains include coordinating a track switch to divert the train around a stalled car, but not until an oncoming train passes in the opposite direction.
The crew members working the tracks shine when they have to help manually adjust the track. They also engage in high speed action sequences running trains alongside or behind the one with the bomb.
Modern stunt work and visual effects deliver grandiose spectacle on par with Hollywood films. But, those would just be more explosions and crashes without the human element.
Bullet Train Explosion deals with the moral conundrums of putting some lives above others, with the haves and have nots arguing about rescue plans. The crisis requires teamwork between passengers, and also between the control room and field crew.
This dynamic is what makes movies like The Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno work -- characters who would normally be at odds have to work together, and hopefully learn they've misjudged each other.
'90s movies like Independence Day, Volcano and passengers on Speed's bus also captured this, though the ensemble was more background in the likes of Twister. At over two hours, Bullet Train Explosion fills its journey with plenty of action and character interplay to power that action.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
