Respond to these rapid questions in our Bullet Train quiz and we will tell you which Bullet Train character you are. Play it now.
“Bullet Train” is an action movie that frequently feels and looks like it could have been an animated one. The majority of the film was shot on green-screened sets, and the cityscapes and landscapes that the train travels through are mostly miniatures and computer-generated imagery. The plot takes place on a bullet train hurtling across Japan. Its characters are also rather abstract and overtly comic book-like. The majority of the characters either hold grudges against one another or are the target of grudges while seeking to flee the consequences of past deeds. All are either hired killers or other violent criminals related to the world of crime. Inevitably, 30 years after the great Tarantino realignment of the early 1990s, most of them are chatterboxes who will monologue at anyone who doesn’t point a gun at their head and order them to shut up, and the tone mixes winking black comedy and poker-faced pulp. They typically have tragic-sentimental backstories or be purely malevolent.
Ladybug, a former assassin hired to board the train, grab a briefcase, and exit, is portrayed by Brad Pitt. Because he recently completed anger management and has decided not to kill, he rejects his handler’s advice to carry a pistol and is filling in for another assassin who had to cancel at the last minute. A bomber crew of murderous oddballs are Ladybug’s fellow killers. Joey King is “The Prince,” a cunning and merciless agent of devastation who first presents herself as a helpless schoolgirl horrified by men’s brutality. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry are brothers who have gone from mission to mission amassing a body count that appears to be in the triple digits. They are now on the train guarding the briefcase and escorting the depressed twentysomething wastrel son (Logan Lerman) of a terrifying crime boss known as the White Death. Aaron Taylor-Johnson has been styled to resemble the evil drunk Begbie from the original “Trainspotting.”
A Russian named The White Death seized control of a Yakuza family. The audience will have more pleasure resisting the urge to look up the actor who portrays him online because his casting is one of the story’s finest surprises. His face isn’t revealed until the very end. Hiroyuki Sanada is “The Elder,” a grizzled but still deadly assassin associated with the White Death, and Andrew Koji is “The Father”—obviously The Elder’s son. They are seeking retribution for pushing The Elder’s grandson over a department store roof, which placed him in a coma. They think the perpetrator is on the train, mingling with the other murderers.
With the comatose grandchild and the metal briefcase as its focal points, the plot first appears to be goal-driven. Bullet Train, however, turns into a half-hearted but sincere statement on fate, luck, and karma as the plot introduces new fighters and shows how they’re all tangentially connected. Ladybug’s constant (and frequently amusingly irritating) comments on these topics, voiced in discussions through a handler (Sandra Bullock’s Maria Beetle, heard via earpiece), start to feel like an instruction manual for understanding what the movie is “actually” up to. (Ladybug is sort of a post-credits Jules from “Pulp Fiction” after rejecting violence, but he’s still caught in the life, and it’s gotten harder because he’s vowed never to pick up a gun again.)
But you shouldn’t waste any more time and start this Bullet Train quiz.
Characters are introduced with the typeface-on-screen-followed-by-flashback-montage style that genre fans would remember from filmmakers like Guy Ritchie and Quentin Tarantino (whose “Kill Bill” appears to be a major influence) (who pioneered a particular brand of “lad action” in which verbal insults become little fists and knives deployed against enemies). Guns, knives, fists, and any other weapon they can get their hands on are used by the combatants as they chase each other around (the briefcase gets a workout as both a defensive weapon and a bludgeon). They joke around as they fight, and occasionally, when one of them passes away, the tone will change to a maudlin lament that is frequently moving due to the cast’s talent, but it doesn’t arouse strong emotion given how superficial and facile the rest of the film is.
David Leitch, a former stunt coordinator and screen double for Brad Pitt and Jean-Claude Van Damme, and a former directorial partner of Chad Stahleski, is the film’s director (of the “John Wick” series). Given that he helmed “Deadpool 2,” “Atomic Blonde,” and “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw,” he has established himself as an expert in high-grade acrobatic mayhem. It’s difficult to dispute his expertise in managing this type of production, and it may be amusing to see “Bullet Train” embrace its intentionally absurd visuals, which occasionally veer toward the psychedelia generated by “Speed Racer.”
Bullet Train Quiz
The question of whether a project of this nature is entirely worthwhile is another. It tries to strike us in the throat with a moment of dramatic strength so that we grieve for the characters while simultaneously informing us that “this is all light and ridiculous and none of it is of any consequence.” Despite having Cockney accents that might not be acceptable in a college production of “My Fair Lady,” Henry and Taylor-story Johnson’s succeeds because of the love that the brothers display for one another, even when they are torturing each other. The film’s greatest accomplishment is how Henry makes you not despise the gimmick of having his character constantly compare everyone to characters from Thomas the Tank Engine.
Also, you will find out which character are you in this Bullet Train quiz.
But the rest comes out as forced and artificial. “Bullet Train” is at its best when it’s a comedy about self-described badasses who believe they are free agents but are actually simply passengers on a train speeding from station to station, blind to the desires of any passenger travelling on it. Any component that would have otherwise taken root in the viewer’s imagination is finally undone by the abstractness and “it’s all a lark” comedy.
The project is abstract in another manner as well because the characters were Japanese and the script was based on a Ktar Isaka novel. Leitch and crew have recast the story “internationally,” beginning with Leitch’s old on-screen collaborator Pitt. They took over the project from Antoine Fuqua, who wanted to produce a less joking “Die Hard on a Train”-type movie. The decision to maintain the Japanese setting, despite having allegedly pondered doing so, was justified by the fact that “Bullet Train” is a fantasy movie that might be set anywhere and is essentially taking place nowhere.
About the quiz
The justification is flawed given how heavily “Bullet Train” relies on Japanese cultural norms and signifiers (King’s character is essentially an animated “schoolgirl” avatar come to life), not to mention how it effectively deracinates every major character with the exception of a small group of stereotypical Yakuza, who are given a Russian chieftain modeled after Keyser Söze from “The Usual Suspects.” The latter looks unrealistic, even in a fantasy, despite the fact that all of the actors portray it with professionalism. Why not simply go full “Speed Racer” or “The Matrix” with it and own the green-screeness of the entire production, set it in the future on another planet, or in an alternate dimension? If nothing in the film is real, either as a reason for the casting, or as a guiding aesthetic, then why not? With the exception of the protagonists’ inability to resurrect themselves after death, it is essentially a Marvel superhero film. Instead of a technically and logistically challenging film that doesn’t leave much of an emotional or intellectual impression, the outcome might have been a delirious work of art.
Also, you must try to play this Bullet Train quiz.
Currently showing in theaters
For more personality quizzes check this: Pauls Promise Quiz.
