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Shinkansen Explosion from Netflix may look like Speed rip-off, but its roots go farther back【Vid】

Casey Baseel Mar 5, 2025
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New movie from Shin Godzilla director stars former boy band star on bullet train that can’t slow down.

In recent years, there’s been a trend in anime and light novels towards exhaustively comprehensive titles that meander through a dozen words or more to spell out their premise. So it’s really refreshing that for its latest Japan-produced project, Netflix has gone with a title that’s lets you know what the movie is about while still being positively pithy: Bullet Train Explosion.

Set aboard a Hayabusa-class Shinkansen, Bullet Train Explosion (which has the slightly more descriptive title Shinkansen Daibakuhaku, or “Big Shinkansen Explosion” in Japanese) is the newest work from Shin Godzilla co-director Shinju Higuchi. Former boy band SMAP member Tsuyoshi Kusanagi stars as a Shinkansen driver on the Tohoku Shinkansen line which connects Aomori Prefecture and Tokyo. After the train departs for the capital, a bomb threat comes in explaining that the train will explode if its speed drops under 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour. In exchange for the passengers’ lives, the bomber is demanding 100 billion yen.

▼ Even with the weak yen, that still works out to about US$675 million.

This is a movie concept that’s been done before, but if the setup of “public transportation vehicle will explode if it slows down” has you thinking that Shinkansen Explosion is ripping off Speed, that’s not what’s happening. The inspiration for Shinkansen Explosion is quite a bit older than the 1994 Keanu Reeves blockbuster, as Netflix’s new movie is actually a remake of a 1975 Japanese film known as The Bullet Train or The Bullet Train, Super Express 109 in English, and which has the exact same title in Japanese, Shinkansen Daibakuhaku.

▼ Poster for The Bullet Train, starring Sonny Chiba

▼ Promotional art for Shinkansen Explosion

There are a few differences between Shinkansen Explosion and The Bullet Train, however. The original was set on a bullet train traveling from Tokyo to Fukuoka, which had only been added to the Shinkansen rail network three years prior to the film’s release. While the Tokyo-to-Fukuoka route passes through alternating rural and urban areas, for most of the second half of the line from Aomori to Tokyo the Shinkansen travels through increasingly populous area, which should add an extra layer of tension to the new Shinkansen Explosion as it approaches its climax.

▼ By the way, a Hayabusa-class Shinkansen makes the trip from Aomori to Tokyo in roughly three and a half hours, so it’s possible that the movie’s events will happen in real-time.

With the Shinkansen’s sterling safety record, the idea of making a movie in which the pride of Japan’s rail network is vulnerable to a bomb threat might seem like something East Japan Railway Company/JR East, which operates the Tohoku Shinkansen, would want no part in. However, it turns out that Shinkansen Explosion was produced with cooperation from JR East (which revealed the design of the new Tohoku Shinkansen train just one day before the Shinkansen Explosion trailer was released). Judging from the preview, it looks like the secondary antagonists won’t be inept rail workers, but callous government officials.

▼ Unskilled and uncaring politicians also feature into the plots of Shin Godzilla, but it’s unlikely that the King of the Monsters will show in Shinkansen Explosion.

Aside offering thrills and action, Shinkansen Explosion looks to be a treat for rail fans, with online commenters already getting hyped about a scene in the trailer featuring the ALFA-X, a real-world experimental Shinkansen model used for testing purposes on the Tohoku Shinkansen line.

Shinkansen Explosion starts streaming on Netflix on April 23.

Source: YouTube/Netflix Asia
Top image: YouTube/Netflix Asia
Insert images: YouTube/Netflix Asia, PR Times, Netflix
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