BULLET TRAIN
April 28th 2009 14:09
Bullet Train - twenty years later it would be remade as 'Speed'. Stick with the original only.
Today I write to let you know about a shamefully ignored – or at least ignored to my knowledge – masterpiece.
Without a doubt ‘Bullet Train’ has to be canonized as one of the great international films of the 1970’s – and as the hand of irony would have it – the inspiration for one of the most crappy films of the 90’s - ‘Speed’.
Hailing from Japan and made in 1975 by Junya Sato - Bullet Train is consistently brilliant from start to finish with no weak links to be found and unlike it’s remake - it has the convictions to live up to menace of it’s own premise; a terrorist has planted a bomb on one of Tokyo’s famous bullet trains, carrying 1500 passengers. When it reaches 80km p/h a bomb hidden in the train is activated – if the train goes below 80 km p/h in speed after that – the bomb goes off.
Sound familiar?
Having said that, why is Bullet Train so good then? Simply put - it takes an epic approach to the particular themes it choses to contemplate and is a great example of the subject matter being purely incidental. One of the things that struck me immediately about Bullet Train is how westernised the film feels. It’s a good old fashioned ‘which wire do I cut’ type thriller, what makes it special however, is that firstly, it takes all of that stuff and kicks it up to an intense level, slaps you in the face – and doesn’t let go and the film is long too – it’s 2 ½ hours. Not one of it’s 153 minutes are wasted. The films starts in fifth gear and intelligently, maintains that fury for all the right reasons.
Secondly - the film’s story takes the time to focus on some truly interesting elements which a film like ‘Speed’ choses to dully marginalize. The biggest joy in this department is how the terrorist who has planted the bomb is portrayed. He is no ‘one dimensional bad guy’. He is a man who doesn’t know what to do any more. He is at such an extreme point of desperation that he doesn’t care about what chaos he’ll cause, how many will die or what the repercussions will be – all he knows is that he is hurting. It’s almost as if he saw too many films with this type of story and thought it would go down exactly that way. It certainly doesn’t. in fact, everything that can go wrong – does go wrong, for his plans and for the police.
Ken Takakura who plays the terrorist does an amazing job of making you actually care about his misfortunes, while all the time you still want him to get caught. You feel like you understand him, which may be a challenging for others who’ll insist on hating him and when they can’t they will assume it’s a badly made film. For viewers like myself, this will be where the biggest thrill comes into the picture, since it stops the audience from taking sides so easily and really makes them ask some questions about society and what drives people in some cases. It’s these traits which stop Bullet Train from being a black and white story of good and evil.
For the same token, there are no heroes in Bullet Train. Point in case, the train driver is played by Sonny Chiba (The Street Fighter series, Kill Bill, The Killing Machine) . For those of you who are not familiar with Chiba’s work – he is an incredibly accomplished martial artist, possibly the most accomplished since Bruce Lee and a bad motherfucker too. Sonny kicked some serious ass back in the 70’s – but not in Bullet Train – as the driver of this train we have to watch him sweat it out helplessly with everyone else.
Through out Bullet Train there’s an intangible feeling suspended through the film as if everything in Japan will/could or/and has already swallowed it self up. The size of catastrophe in the story is certainly indicative of how fragile a country the size of Japan or America can become when it gets too large a size, socially, technologically, politically, it can crumble when all of it’s own sophistication is used against it.
There are many interesting facets of Bullet Train in addition to it’s social commentary . However at the end of the day, what makes it great is the fact that it’s simply a well told, bloody exciting, hard hitting action thriller.
Watch it!
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Speed does owe alot to this film (agreed Canoes crappy action vehicle was a write off.)
Bullet Train is a tense ride that never opts for low key, always excessive fun. I have to agree that the angle it takes of a sympathetic terrorist is also refreshing, understanding your foe.
Good to see the unique titles appearing on your blog and as always another worthy review.....is "Runaway Train" on the cards soon?
Comment by Cibbuano
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