Movie · 2025 · Action, Thriller, Crime, Drama · 2h 17m · PG-13 · Japanese
Curator score: 2.1/10 (37.2K ratings)
Overview
When panic erupts on a Tokyo-bound bullet train that will explode if it slows below 100 kph, authorities race against time to save everyone on board.
Ratings
Curator score: 2.1/10
IMDb: 6.2/10
Letterboxd: 3.03/5
Metacritic: 63
TMDB: 6.8/10
Director
Shinji Higuchi
Production
Netflix, EPISCOPE
Cast
Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Machiko Ono, Jun Kaname, Non, Kanata Hosoda, Daisuke Kuroda, Satoru Matsuo, Suzuka Ohgo, Hana Toyoshima, Takumi Saitoh, Matsuya Onoe, Naomasa Musaka, Pierre Taki, Bando Yajuro, Nishino Emi, Yuno Ohara, Tatsuya Mori, Kentaro Tamura, Kenji Iwaya, Shota Taniguchi
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A tense, high-concept disaster thriller with strong momentum, sharp production values, and a very Japanese blend of civic procedure, workplace drama, and moral pressure-cooker suspense. It can be repetitive and a bit overlong, but the setup is efficient and the stakes stay clear enough to keep it moving.
Best for
fans of contained disaster movies
viewers who like procedural suspense
audiences interested in Japanese thrillers
people who enjoy high-concept action with social commentary
fans of Shinji Higuchi-style large-scale crisis storytelling
Skip if
you want lean, fast-paced action with no repetition
you dislike melodrama or bureaucratic procedure
you need a tightly edited thriller under two hours
you are looking for a purely action-driven spectacle without character detours
Overview
Bullet Train Explosion turns a simple premise into a long, anxious exercise in escalation: a Tokyo-bound train cannot slow down, and every decision becomes a matter of mass survival. The movie’s best asset is its discipline around the central conceit, using the train’s motion to generate constant forward pressure while folding in passenger politics, institutional response, and personal baggage.
Worth noting
It plays less like a pure action film than a crisis procedural with emotional side rails. That gives it texture, especially in the way it connects public duty, loneliness, and the burden of keeping appearances intact, but it also creates some drag when the film revisits the same beats too often. The result is effective more often than it is exhilarating.
Bottom line
Still, the craftsmanship is solid and the suspense is real. If you like disaster movies that are as much about systems and responsibility as they are about explosions, this is an easy one to sample, even if it doesn’t fully justify its running time.
Top Letterboxd reviews
tata (3.5★) · 479 likes
Indonesian goverment handling this situation? could never
✧ (4★) · 413 likes
the way this movie said “don’t stop or everyone dies” and then just kept going for 2 hours straight. like pls give me a sec to breathe shinji.
edil · 323 likes
such a Japan film in its themes: unending work ethic, civic duty at the cost of personal sacrifice, contained societal aberration coming out as an extreme, bounds of bureaucracy, and a mistrust in the younger generation. would be a faster, more fun ride without a couple repetitive tracks, or a draggy third act.
Non as the driver is cutesy casting cryonized; she always slays roles where her intelligence finds a way to the foreground, all while she’s lost in life.
louvre (2.5★) · 250 likes
God forbid a girl wants to die
rikurikuri (3★) · 214 likes
i have never seen a movie coddle a terrorist more than this lmfao
1985 · Action, Thriller, Drama · 1h 51m · R · Curator 5.9/10 (61.4K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, History Vault, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Another high-stakes motion thriller built around unstoppable momentum and human desperation.