’96 Minutes’ Review: Reviving a Classic Bomb-on-a-Train Premise (Netflix)
A bomb disposal expert traveling with his detective fiancée must defuse a bomb on a bullet train before time—and his past—catch up with him.
The 1975 Japanese thriller The Bullet Train has spawned countless remakes and variations over the years. Beyond the original, there’s last year’s Japanese remake Bullet Train Explosion, classic films like Speed, and many others built around the same high-concept premise: a bomb that may or may not go off aboard a vehicle that cannot stop. The Taiwanese film 96 Minutes adds a heavy dose of drama to this half-century-old formula, layering it with mysteries, motives, and a threat that’s doubled—or even tripled.
The story begins three years earlier, when A-Ren (Austin Lin), a bomb disposal specialist, is called to defuse an explosive planted in a movie theater. He succeeds—but the unthinkable happens simultaneously: another bomb detonates in a nearby shopping mall, killing dozens. Though the media hails him as a hero, neither A-Ren nor his superior, Li Jie (Lee Lee-zen), can shake the crushing guilt. Did they really make the right call?
Three years later, A-Ren has left the force and is traveling by train with his police-officer partner Huang Xin (Vivian Sung) and his mother, returning from a memorial ceremony honoring the victims of that tragedy. On the same train is Li Jie, along with many passengers who lost loved ones in the explosion. Unsurprisingly, a new bomb threat soon emerges. Once again, the trio must locate and defuse the device, deal with the person behind it—who communicates with them via cellphone—and figure out whether the culprit is among the passengers… or someone else entirely.
As it turns out, that’s only the beginning. Things quickly grow more complicated when a second train, running parallel, may also be carrying a bomb. Defusing one could trigger the other. Or both might explode at the same time. If one train stops, the anonymous caller warns, the other detonates—and vice versa. Meanwhile, suspects multiply: many passengers harbor resentment, trauma, and a thirst for revenge tied to the earlier disaster. Who planted the bomb? Is there more than one culprit? Or perhaps none of the above?
Of all these questions, the most unsettling revolves around motive. The bomber demands that the police publicly confess what really happened during that original incident. According to him, the choice of which bomb to defuse was no accident, and the truth must come out. By the midpoint—when much (though not all) of the mystery becomes clearer, with a few final twists still held in reserve—96 Minutes begins to lose momentum.
The tension that drives the film’s strong opening half hour gradually dissipates, replaced by an overly melodramatic tone that leans on slow-motion anguish where sharper pacing would have served better. Despite its title, the film runs nearly two hours, as director Hung overindulges in flashbacks that are often confusing—unannounced and sometimes slow to register as trips into the past—while attempting to connect the characters to earlier events.
When everyone is a suspect, eventually it matters less who actually did it. The film’s most distinctive element is the intense guilt weighing on its protagonists, rooted in what are essentially ethical decisions. When two bombs are set to explode simultaneously and only one can be disarmed, which do you choose? 96 Minutes doesn’t fully capitalize on this moral dilemma, but it’s a narrative angle rich enough to fuel many more thrillers to come.
