“Strangers to each other, boarding the train for different purposes, yet all of them beading in the same direction.”

In 1975, Junya Sato delivered a blockbuster classic with his American-styled suspense film The Bullet Train. The film proved to be a crowd-pleaser – domestic and international – and left a deep impression on many spectators, like Shinji Higuchi.

For Shinji Higuchi, being able to create a sequel to a film he loves so much was nothing other than a dream coming true. Yet, such chance also turned to be a veritable challenge: how to honour the original and translate its themes into a modern context? While Higuchi failed to craft a classic like the original, he did succeed in delivering a very satisfactory experience that will also invite audiences to check out Sato’s classic out.

The narrative commences, unsurprisingly, in a very similar way as Sato’s The Bullet Train (1975). After the departure of Hayabusa number 60 bound for Tokyo, a disconcerting phone call arrives at the call centre of the East Japan Railway Company Headquarters building. The distorted voice reveals that a bomb is planted on the shinkansen and that it will go off if the train’s speed drops below one hundred kilometres. To prove the legitimacy of the threat, the terrorist detonates a bomb on a nearby freight train.  

After the shinkansen passes Ichinose station, the bomb-planter calls again – his calls now directly routed to the control centre, telling Yoshimura (Keisuke Hoashi), the general manager of JR East, that to receive the required information to deactivate the bomb they must collect one hundred billion yen from the people of Japan. With the government unwilling to negotiate with terrorists, can Yuichi Kasagi (Takumi Saito), the commander of the control centre, train conductor Takaichi (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi), and driver Chika Matsumoto (Non) find a different way to defuse the threat and rescue all the passengers.

Bullet Train Explosion is not a narrative that, immediately, succeeds to engage the spectator. It is only as Higuchi’s narrative passes the first half-hour – i.e. the train-switch-event – that he succeeds in putting the spectator on the edge of his seat and keeping him glued to his screen. Or, to put it differently, the first dramatic twist within Bullet Train Explosion allows the tension, at first imposed on the spectator by the dramatic musical accompaniment and the threatening signifier, to infest his body.

From that moment on, the tension imposed by the film and the tension lingering in the spectator’s body start to function as two communicating vessels. While the spectator extracts lots of pleasure from being under tension by the dramatic twists and turns, he also knows that the true cathartic satisfaction lies in the explosive fracturing of the narrative vessel as it comes to a halt at its terminal destination.

However, Shinji Higuchi offers the spectator many moments of ‘repose’ by inserting moments of human drama within the over-arching attempt to solve the terrorist threat. The main dramatic tension that structures the dramatic side of Bullet Train Explosion is the interpersonal tension between conductor Takaichi and his junior Keiji Fujii (Kanata Hosoda). What causes this friction is Fujii’s inability to fully assume the symbolic role of the conductor and radically accord his acts and signifier with the symbolic adage of “delivering our passengers safely to their destinations”. Higuchi utilizes this dramatic element to re-affirm with vigorous passion that, to function in accordance with such simple moral compass, one must repress one’s own subjectivity – i.e. the inner turmoil of emotions caused by the looming shadow of death.

On the other hand, the conflict between Kentaro Sasaki (Kentaro Tamura), senior advisor to the Prime Minister, and Yuichi Kasagi reveals that different symbolic moral calculations – Sasaki’s turn to minimize the damages and serve the greater good versus Kasagi’s firm decision to rescue everyone – can also cause interpersonal friction and lead the subject’s repressed subjective turmoil to fleetingly burst forth and disturb the cool-headed and focused atmosphere. 

However, these little narratives do not only add a flavour of mundane drama to the narrative, but also allows spectators familiar with Junya Sato’s classic to fully appreciate how society in the last fifty years and the train-riding experience has changed (Narra-note 1). What caused the most radical change within the societal field – the network of our interactions and relations – is not simply the birth of the internet but the proliferation of screens and social media.

With the character of Mitsuru Todoroki (Jun Kamame), an influencer who turns to social media and crowd-funding to meet the bomb-planter demands, Higuchi introduces a kind of subjectivity and certain societal dynamics that simply did not exist in the seventies. The director, moreover, takes the opportunity to highlight the danger of social media – of apps celebrating and deifying the image, by contrasting Takaichi’s radical moral righteousness with the seductive nature of producing enjoyment and encouraging other to enjoy one’s hate for others.    

Higuchi offers a surprising twist concerning the motive of the person who planted the bomb. Rather than opting for a disillusioned subject who lashes out because he feels wronged by society and its political structure like in Junya Sato’s classic, he opts for a more intimate psychological reason that exposes both the patriarchal ravage created by a radical de-subjectifying demand for filial piety as well as the subjective danger of the overvaluation of the image, of fictionalized self-deceiving ego’s, within the societal field – an overvaluation reinforced by the rise of social media. 

The only drawback of Higuchi’s emphasis on human drama is that he is led to break the flow of the tension too often as the narrative unfurls to its conclusion. Higuchi did not craft a frame that seeks to blend both human drama and thrilling tension together – a blend that would reinforce their respective impact on the spectator, but instead chose a juxtaposed structure that lets each strand come to its full right, but sadly does not result in a fully satisfying harmony. This structure results in a bifurcated finale that resolves each strand separately in a pleasing way, but fails to deliver the cathartic experience the spectator awaited.

Given the fact that Bullet Train Explosion is an action narrative, it comes to no surprise that the composition is very dynamic and boasts an inviting flow. However, by keeping his camera moving through the narrative spaces, he does not only engage the spectator visually but also prepares him for the dramatic turns that will follow.

The dynamic baseline of Higuchi’s visual flow gives him the ability to manipulate the tension within given scenes with ease. He is not only able to manipulate the pace of the camera-movements, turn fluid dynamism into shaky framing, heighten the pace by which images concatenate, but also utilize the dramatic impact of sudden contrast between static and dynamic shots.

Bullet Train Explosion heavily relies on musical accompaniment to (forcefully) breathe life into its emotional flow. However, the music is not only utilized to ensure that tension remains sensible throughout the dramatic unfolding of the narrative, but also to decorate the technological advancement of the bullet train and the moral attitude of its personnel – the severity of their identification with their role – with an awe-inspiring heroic quality. 

While the musical accompaniment sorts a romanticizing effect – to the point that one can call Bullet Train Explosion a promotional piece for the Japanese Railway (JR), Higuchi does offer the spectator a revealing glance at the strict guidelines (the checks, safety measures, … etc,) the personnel must follow and the dedicated infrastructure, the hierarchal corporate structure, and advanced technology (e.g. ATC-system) that has made the shinkansen into the safest and one of the most punctual modes of transportation around the world.

Bullet Train Explosion is a competent sequel that will please audiences. Higuchi utilizes all the necessary ingredients to deliver a cinematic experience that puts the spectator on the edge of his seat and succeeds in touching him emotionally. However, the bifurcated structure, the alternation between moments emotion and thrilling tension, does ultimately undercut the impact of the finale – sips of two separate drinks do not equal the impact of a big swig of a well-mixed cocktail.   

Notes

Narra-note 1: Other side-narratives within Bullet Train Explosion concern the disgraced mama-katsu politician Yuko Kagami (Machiko Ono) who tries to exploit the situation on the train to ‘restore’ her image and the ‘social-mediatized ’attack on Masatoshi Goto (Satoru Matsuo), the former president of a travel company held responsible for a tragic helicopter-accident, by certain passengers.