The Bullet Train

A bomb has been placed on a shinkansen leaving Tokyo. The device is tied to speed: if the train drops below eighty kilometres an hour it detonates. Unless the ransom is paid there is no way to stop. The police try to find the bombers, the crew try to run the train, and the passengers try to know nothing. Junya Satō's film is as notable for the room it gives the bomber as for its premise. Half of it explains how the man Ken Takakura plays reached this point: a small factory owner bankrupted, someone who could not hold on in the economic order of the 1970s. The narrative is a thriller and a class story at once. Sonny Chiba plays the driver. Outside Japan the film was shown dubbed and heavily cut, and that truncated version circulated for years. The same speed-based premise was later used in American cinema. Who it's for: Viewers who like 1970s disaster and suspense films, Japanese action cinema, and Ken Takakura. Who it's not for: It runs long and the subplots slow it down. Anyone who lands on the cut version is missing half the film.