I feel the need for Speed! Today's Film is The Bullet Train, a 1975 Film that has a similarity to a famous Film. To be fair, it is mostly a surface similarity. The Plot involves some bad guys who put a bomb on a Bullet Train. If the Train goes under a certain speed, it's going to blow up. Yes, it's Speed. To be more accurate, Speed is this though, isn't it? That said, this is much more of a '70s Disaster Film than anything else. All that is missing is ugly '70s Cars getting crushed or big Stars slumming it for a quick buck. Speaking of Stars, we get Sonny Chiba in a rare non-Action Role. Neat. The Film is quite long and I've got alot to talk about, so let's just go down this tunnel...
In a Cold Open, a man puts a bomb on a Bullet Train.
I guess that's what happens when you can't have guns- you go around making bombs.
I might be misinterpreting things though...
After we establish all of the random people on the Train (a Prisoner, a Pregnant Woman, other random people and a Pop Group), the Police get a call about the train.
Stupid Metric System!
This is a deep into the '70s Film, so you know all of the stuff to expect.
We see bad guys planning.
We see heroic Cops.
We see them get a call from the bad guys, but they fail to trace the call in time...
On board the train, they (naturally) keep the bomb thing a secret for as long as they can.
Tensions run high, of course, as everyone knows that something must be up.
The Police set up a drop for the payment with one of the bad guys, but things take a weird turn.
A group of Judo Students are jogging through the same Forest and end up chasing him. Why not?
In what becomes an odd trend, the chase ends in his death before he can give up information.
Later on, they get close to another one and he throws some dynamite down, jumps at it and gets blown up.
That seems like somethings he's planned out for a while and not a spur of the moment thing, no?
To make a long story short (this is nearly 3 hours long), they manage to get a welding torch onto the train to remove the bomb.
In the meantime, they run an appeal to the Bomber to give them the information.
After the bombs are disarmed (shock twist- there were two!), the guy in charge (or so he thought) finds that it is still running.
They explain that this is just a trap for the bad guy. He's not happy and quits.
The final bad guy tries to flee with the money, but gets spotted at the Airport.
When he tries to flee, he is killed by the Police in a negative-tinted freeze frame. How artistic.
The End.
A good Film, if a bit long. As mentioned, the Film clocks in at around 2 hours and 35 minutes. If you're not fighting Thanos or saving Middle-Earth, that's a long time! I know it's become an accepted thing in recent memory for big tent-pole Films to be this long. That said, this Film really stretches to fill time. The Train has about six Sub Plots worth of stuff to pad things out. Some of it is sad- like the pregnant woman losing her kid-, while others are unintentionally-silly- like the over-dramatic Passengers. Off the train, we have lots of stalling in the Control Room AND with the bad guys. They spend alot more time than you might think with said bad guys. In theory, it is fine. In practice, I just lost interest. Some of it I think is a regional thing, as they debate with the Leader over losing his commitment to the whole thing. None of it is bad- it's just not that exciting. The big moments usually pay off here, so I still recommend it if you're a fan of '70s Disaster Films. Just go into knowing what to expect. So it's not always going to be explosions and shooting, it's often going to be switchboards galore!
Next time, I stick with Japan for a bit longer. I have either a Remake or a Parody to pick between. Stay tuned...
No comments:
Post a Comment