In an age of perpetual crisis, disaster movies have started to feel like a form of escapism. Sure, they depict things going horribly wrong, but they also offer hope that people might manage to overcome adversity.
There’s barely a moment during Shinji Higuchi’s “Bullet Train Explosion” when you’ll have reason to doubt that engineering and teamwork will ultimately save the day. Netflix’s most lavish Japanese movie to date is fast and frictionless entertainment with a reassuring message that come what may, we’re all in safe hands.
It’s a reboot of Junya Sato’s “The Bullet Train” (1975), a classic Japanese disaster movie that sought to emulate the success of John Guillermin’s “The Towering Inferno” the previous year. As in the original, a bullet train is held to ransom with a bomb that’s wired to blow if the speed drops below a certain amount — though this time it’s a Hayabusa shinkansen hurtling from Shin-Aomori toward Tokyo, and the mandatory velocity has been raised to 100 kph.
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