Shinji Higuchi’s action thriller Bullet Train Explosion debuted on Netflix on April 23 with something of a bang, with the movie enthusiastically embraced by viewers and climbing as high as No. 2 in the streamer’s global non-English films list. The movie was another win for Netflix Japan, and notably a breakout feature for the region after it had scored international and critical successes with series such as Alice in Borderland, First Love, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean, The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House and The Boyfriend.
A sequel to Junya Sato’s 1975 classic The Bullet Train — a film that inspired Jan de Bont’s 1994 blockbuster Speed — Bullet Train Explosion updates the action to the present day and similarly sees an unseen villain claim (and also prove) that they have placed a bomb on a Tokyo-bound Shinkansen train, that is set to explode if the train drops below 100 km/h in speed. A combination of JR East train employees, passengers, as well as control tower staff and bureaucrats then attempt to figure out a plan to rescue the hundreds of train passengers and stop the train from reaching central Tokyo before it explodes.
On top of its lineage to The Bullet Train, Higuchi’s film will have extra special resonance for Japanese audiences, as well as anyone who has visited Japan, with the central importance the Shinkansen plays in the movie. Bullet Train Explosion is notable for the production getting official backing from Japanese railway operator East Japan Railway Company, a rarity as the organisation is loath to sanction depictions of the service that may cast aspersions or associate it with unsavory issues.
At Netflix’s recent Asia Pacific film content showcase in Tokyo, Higuchi, as well as some of the creative team behind Bullet Train Explosion, spoke at length about the linkup with JR East and the amount of detail the production went into recreating the high level of verisimilitude in the film. Higuchi and the producers were keen to stress that Japan’s legions of train afficianados would appreciate the level of work that went into the sets that recreated the carriages, the uniforms and everything else that was unimistakably a part of the experience of travelling on the JR East.
Ahead of the streaming release of Bullet Train Explosion on Netflix, The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Higuchi about the film at the Tokyo showcase. The filmmaker discussed the inspirations he took from The Bullet Train, what the Shinkansen means to the Japanese people, the making of the film and some of the dos and don’ts from JR East Railway.
First, I wanted to ask you what you think the Shinkansen train means to people in Japan?Why is it so important?
I don’t know what the Shinkansen train means for everybody in Japan, but for me on a personal level, I was born in 1965 and the first Tōkaidō Shinkansen was introduced a year before I was born. And so as a child, the Shinkansen was something that you would see in TV programs and there would be children’s songs about it. It was something that everybody dreamed of, it was aspirational for us. It was the first thing that really let you experience things out of the ordinary.
As I grew into an adult, I would use the Shinkansen more for getting to and from work. And so I started using it differently than compared to when I was a child. And the Shinkansen evolved too, the speed became 1.5 times faster than it was in the beginning, and it allowed you to go to all these different places. When it started, it was just one route between Osaka and Tokyo, then it expanded, and you were able to go everywhere. When that happened, it went from something out of the ordinary, to something that was part of everyday life. Then in 1975, there was the original movie, [The Bullet Train]. The poster showed the Shinkansen blowing up, but when you actually saw the movie, though, it didn’t explode! Because it would be a disaster if it actually exploded, so the characters just did everything in their power to prevent the explosion from happening. [In the film] you see the police, the railway company, people doing everything they can to stop the bullet train, that was something that was very intriguing to see.
[The star of The Bullet Train], Ken Takakura, is an iconic actor in Japan, he played perpetrator. This actor, who we usually saw as a hero, was now a villain, he sets a bomb on the train, and he is shot by the police at the very end. I was in fourth grade when the film came out, and until then I had only seen movies of monsters, heroes and animation. And The Sound of Music! [laughs]. So it was the first time that I saw a movie where the criminal was shot by the police. It was very shocking because I was accustomed to seeing movies with happy endings. [The film] really talked about the injustice that exists in this world, and it taught me a lesson. It was a refreshing experience, where you were able to experience the thrill of somebody actually committing a crime, and then also this real tension of seeing this beautiful Shinkansen being in this kind of situation. So the film left an emotional scar when I saw it for the first time.
Tsuyoshi Kusanagi plays the conductor in ‘Bullet Train Explosion.’
Netflix
Regarding the themes of your film. What did you want to communicate to Japan and also to the world with the themes of the film? What I loved about Bullet Train Explosion is the way that it is a great action film, but also the way it celebrates the things the world loves about Japan, like working together to solve problems, keeping the trains on time, social trust. Did you have those things in mind at all?
From a critical point of view, I think the Japanese people they are on a decline, compared to 50 years ago, when the original film was made. Everything has been going down, in terms of the economy. But then, if we bring you that decline as the core of this film, that’s not going to make anybody happy! This time around [for Bullet Train Explosion], the characters in this film are all people that are not such great people, including, some of the passengers, they all have their faults. [There’s the scandal-plagued] politician, there’s the YouTuber that only thinks about money. There are a lot of these kinds of people in Japan today. And the ultimate character is the girl who has no appreciation for life and no hope at all. Those are the characters, but we made a point of not killing any of them.
Then you have the JR people, the staff on the JR, these are people that seem like they are only able to do routine work. [Tsuyoshi Kusanagi’s character] would have been able to save all the passengers if he was able to kill that girl, but he’s not able to do that. So, it’s really a question of whom the hero is, and that’s the message that I wanted to convey when we were portraying the perpetrator. I think the character that Tsuyoshi Kusanagi played is very representative of the people of Japan in today’s society.
Actually, when we initially came up with the idea of the conductor, his background would be that he would have a family, he had children to go back home to. He would have this everyday life, and he would be stuck in this conflict between his family and his work. When we pitched that character idea to JR in the beginning, they said the scenes where [the conductor] leaves a voicemail on his smartphone or emails his family from the Shinkansen [weren’t realistic] because when the JR conductor boards a Shinkansen, they do not have smartphones with them because they put them in their lockers at the station. They shut themselves off completely from the outside world and their families.
‘Bullet Train Explosion’
Netflix
From my point of view as an American, watching the film what I loved about it is that we’re living in a time when all around the world, trust in institutions and civic society is breaking down. This film really celebrates people doing humble jobs with dignity — coming together to solve a problem. There’s some critique of bureaucracy, but overall, people work together to solve a problem. The trains are running on time, where it feels like social services around the world are breaking down, like even Germany’s trains don’t run on time anymore! Do you think the world can learn from Japan a little bit at this moment and what this film says about that?And the other thing I’m curious about is what else JR said that you could and couldn’t do, and what their concerns were?
I don’t really have an intention of pushing Japan’s message to the world! I’m actually more curious to hear what people think of the film after they see it. When I first went to the airport [in the U.S.], I saw the people who were doing the body checks, and they seemed to be living an extension of their private life and everything was just very free and so that actually was very shocking to me when I first went to the U.S. And I think it really showed what kind of country that the U.S. is. I think there isn’t a need for any country to be like the other. We need to learn and take the good things from one another. And they were throwing snacks! On the flight! [laughs] It makes you feel you can join in, become one of them! That would never happen on the Shinkansen! [laughs] It’s a very small thing, but that’s one of the things that I really appreciated when I went to the U.S., that experience. It’s great. I love it.
About JR and their concerns. I think, because they have so many rules, if we had kept to each and every one of their rules, everything would have been out of the question! In that sense, they really gave us that freedom to do what we wanted. But we really did stay in tune to the mindset of the employees and really thought of how they would react in these kinds of situations.
Greg Cannom, the masterful prosthetics and makeup specialist who received Oscars for his work on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Vice, has died. He was 73.
Cannom worked often with makeup maestro Rick Baker early in his career, and Baker on Friday reported his death in an Instagram post. “His work will be remembered long after his passing,” he wrote. No details were immediately available.
In March 2023, a GoFundMe page was set up to help Cannom with expenses as he battled diabetes and a staph infection that led to one of his legs being amputated below his knee.
In addition to his four wins, Cannom received six other Oscar makeup noms: for Hook (1991), Hoffa (1992), Roommates (1995), Titanic (1997), Bicentennial Man (1999) and A Beautiful Mind (2001).
He and Wesley Wofford shared an Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 2005 for “the development of their special modified silicone material for makeup applications used in motion pictures.”
And in 2019, the Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award.
Cannom was especially skillful at making actors age onscreen; witness Kevin Pollak in The Whole Ten Yards (2004), Brad Pitt in Babel (2006) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, Robin Williams in Bicentennial Man and Christian Bale — as Dick Cheney — in Vice (2018).
In 2006, he landed one of his five career Emmy nominations for his work in the finale of the original run of the NBC sitcom Will & Grace when the characters age some 20 years.
“With monsters, you design whatever you want. With age makeup, everybody knows what they look like, so it’s got to be really good,” he said in a 2021 interview.
His skill on transforming the young actors in The Lost Boys (1987) into vampires — while still retaining their boyish good looks — is universally admired. He also helped turn Williams and Martin Lawrence into believable women in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and the Big Momma’s House movies of 2000 and ’06.
Cannom said he was inspired to pursue a career in Hollywood after being wowed by the aging makeup handled by Dick Smith on Max Von Sydow in The Exorcist (1973).
After attending Cypress College in Southern California and working at the Knott’s Berry Farm theme park during Halloween seasons, he connected with Baker and served as his assistant on It Lives Again (1978).
The two also collaborated on The Howling (1981), The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981), Cocoon (1985), the 1987-88 Fox series Werewolf and perhaps most significantly on the 1983 music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
In that, Cannom appears near the end in full closeup as one of the vampires in makeup applied by Charles H. Schram of Wizard of Oz fame.
His remarkable film résumé also included Dreamscape (1984), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 (1987), Big Top Pee-wee (1988), Dick Tracy (1990), Postcards From the Edge (1990), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), Alien 3 (1992), Batman Returns (1992), The Man Without a Face (1993), The Mask (1994), Thinner (1996), Kull the Conqueror (1997), Blade (1998), The Insider (1999), Hannibal (2001), Ali (2001), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), Van Helsing (2004), The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) and The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021), his final film.
Cannom assisted on seven films nominated for best picture: Titanic, The Insider, A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander, Babel, Benjamin Button and Vice, with Titanic and A Beautiful Mind coming out on top.
He shared his Oscars with Michèle Burke and Matthew W. Mungle on Bram Stoker’sDracula (1992), with Ve Neill and Yolanda Toussieng on Mrs. Doubtfire and with Kate Biscoe and Patricia Dehaney on Vice.
Ryan Coogler‘s genre-bending Sinners continues to bare sharp teeth in its fourth weekend, thanks to golden word-of-mouth that few films enjoy.
In its latest milestone, Sinners has crossed the $200 million mark at the domestic office after finishing Friday with a cume of $199.8 million. The supernatural vampire pic is another coup for Coolger, the bold and audacious filmmaker behind the Black Panther and Creed franchises. Sinners‘ actor Michael B. Jordan has starred in all five of his movies. Through Sunday, the pic’s domestic total is an estimated $214.9 million; globally, it has grossed $283.3 million.
This weekend is a notable double win for Warner Bros. Motion group co-chairs Michael Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy as A Minecraft Movie — the second-top grossing video adaptation of all time, not adjusted for inflation — jumps the $900 million mark globally to make Minecraft and Sinners the top two grossing films of the year so far domestically.
Minecraft is the top Hollywood film of 2025 to date at the worldwide box office, followed by Disney and Marvel‘s Captain America:Brave New World ($416 million) and Sinners ($250.8 million).
Marvel is winning the May 9-10 weekend overall with Thunderbolts*, which, like Sinners, is benefiting from stellar audience scores. The verdict is out on the film’s ultimate standing, which will depend on how well it holds up when more competition enters the marketplace (there are no new Hollywood event pics on the marquee this weekend).
At Warner, De Luca and Abdy have come under scrutiny internally for putting too much trust in auteur filmmakers and original fare. Coogler’s R-rated film is one of several such projects, and has turned out to be an enormous feather in their cap. Rarely does a sleeper sensation come along like Sinners, a period-set story in the Jim Crow south of the early 1930s in which Jordan plays dual roles as twin brothers who buy a juke joint only to discover a menacing supernatural force.
When Sinners first opened, naysayers were quick to label the $80 million film a wash. They were wrong. Sinners continues to over-index among Black moviegoers, an underserved audience, as well as play to white and Latino moviegoers.
A Minecraft Movie, co-financed and co-produced by Legendary, has also exceeded all expectations for a video game adaptation and has no doubt launched a new franchise for Abdy and De Luca even if it comes short of joining the $1 billion club at the global box office as Paramount’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie succeeded in doing with more than $1.33 billion in ticket sales, not adjusted for inflation. Chris Lee’s Vertigo is also a producer on Minecraft.
May 11, 8:45 a.m.: Updated with weekend estimates.
A teenage boxer is pushed to the limits in Wild Foxes. The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively reveal the first trailer from the feature film debut of Belgian director Valéry Carnoy. The film will have its world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes film festival, which kicks off next week.
Samuel Kircher, the breakout star of Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer, stars as Camille, a talented young boxer at a sports boarding school who narrowly survives a fatal accident, saved by his best friend Matteo (Faycal Anaflous). But after a swift recovery, Camille is struck by an inexplicable pain that gradually takes hold of him, threatening his dreams of greatness. In the world he knows, in the ring and outside it, there’s no room for weakness.
Carnoy’s 2021 short film Titan was a hit on the international festival circuit, screening in more than a hundred international festivals and winning more than 30 awards.
The Party Film Sales is handling world sales for Wild Foxes.
Charlize Theron is wishing one actress took home a golden statuette for their work.
Theron recently stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! to promote her upcoming movie, The Old Guard 2, when the pair spoke about her co-star, Uma Thurman, and Theron’s recollection of the actress before working with her.
“We knew each other kind of offhand, but I knew her from being a massive fan, just watching her work and always wanted to do something with her,” Theron said. “Because when I came into the action world, she was really, to me, like, the sensei. She was the OG.”
Jimmy Kimmel added, “I agree. She should have won the Academy Award for Kill Bill, right?”
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Theron responded, “A hundred percent. I think men get a lot of credit for these movies.”
“What she did in that film was just so unbelievable. And to me, she’s just such a badass,” the Mad Max: Fury Road actress continued. “Since I’ve been in action movies, I’m like, ‘Who do I want to like work with and do an action sequence with?’ It’s always been Uma Thurman. Always.”
Theron then explained why she was nervous to work with the Pulp Fiction star. “I was definitely intimidated by her especially when she showed up and she was given one sword and we had worked out this whole sequence and she went, ‘I think I want two swords,’” the actress said.
Theron won her best actress Oscar in 2004 for Monster and was nominated in 2006 for North Country and in 2020 for Bombshell. For Thurman’s part, she received a nom for Pulp Fiction in 1995, but lost to Jessica Lange.
Taylor Swift has been subpoenaed by Justin Baldoni’s lawyers in the sprawling legal battle over the filming of It Ends With Us.
Swift’s involvement in the dueling lawsuits relates to suggestions from Blake Lively that Baldoni altered a rooftop scene at the beginning of the film. Lively invited the director to her New York City home in 2023 to discuss the script changes.
Once there, Baldoni was surprised to see Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, and close friend, Swift, according to his lawsuit, which cites communications that include the name “Taylor.” The megastars praise Lively’s version of the scene, pressuring Baldoni to accept the revisions, he alleged.
In a text, Lively refers to Reynolds and Swift as her “dragons.” The message reads, “If you ever get around to watching Game of Thrones, you’ll appreciate that I’m Khaleesi, and like her, I happen to have a few dragons. For better or worse, but usually better. Because my dragons also protect those I fight for.”
Baldoni was supportive of the changes. “I really love what you did. It really does help a lot. Makes it so much more fun and interesting. (And I would have felt that way without Ryan and Taylor),” he wrote with a wink emoji. “You really are a talent across the board. Really excited and grateful to do this together.”
Tensions over the rewrite lead Baldoni to send Lively a six-minute-plus voice message at 2 a.m. to apologize for anything he did to upset her, according to the complaint. At the end of the recording, Baldoni says, “You probably have kids all over you and a baby on your boob, and you’re listening to me ramble at 2 in the morning.”
A spokesperson for Swift said the subpoena is a bid to “draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.” The rep, who noted that the only connection the singer has with the film is permitting the use of “My Tears Ricochet,” added “Taylor Swift never set foot on the set of this movie, she was not involved in any casting or creative decisions, she did not score the film, she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film, she did not even see It Ends With Us until weeks after its public release, and was traveling around the globe during 2023 and 2024 headlining the biggest tour in history.”
Lively and Baldoni didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
