Fate, guns, and a loveable Japanese mascot. The final act of Bullet Train is jam-packed
with tie-ins, callbacks, and double-crosses. Here's how it all plays out. Spoilers ahead!
The third act of "Bullet Train" begins with Kimura's father, the Elder, boarding the train
at the stop right before Kyoto. Except for a few key characters, there's no one left on the train,
something the White Death ensured by buying out all the other seats.
Somehow the Elder is aware of what's been happening there, so when Prince,
the first person he meets on the now largely empty train, informs him his son has perished,
he tells her she's mistaken. As Prince storms off, the Elder joins Ladybug to discover that Kimura
is indeed alive. Surprisingly Lemon, who was also believed to have been murdered by Prince, is still
ticking too. Nonetheless, the train contains an excessive number of bodies, including the Hornet,
the Wolf, and Tangerine, not to mention the White Death's mysteriously murdered son.
As they approach Kyoto station, the quartet of men forms an uneasy alliance in the hopes that they
don't become the White Death's next victims. Of course, against the White Death's mass of goons,
there's not all that much of a stand they can make, but they're determined to try. Lemon moves
to the front of the train to see if he can take control of it, the Elder waits to confront the
White Death after years of planning his revenge against the crime boss for murdering his wife,
"Nooooooo! The White Death had taken everything from me."
and, despite his terrible luck, Ladybug decides to
put himself first in the line of fire as they reach the end of the line.
As the train comes to a stop, Ladybug exits allowing both he
and the viewers to see the White Death for the first time on the station platform.
Up until this point, the White Death is treated much like Bill from Quentin Tarantino's two-part
film, "Kill Bill." He is often mentioned and his presence hangs like a shroud over
the proceedings. And just like Bill, the White Death’s face is only shown later on.
Unfortunately for Ladybug, the White Death thinks he is actually a man named Carver,
Ladybug's hated co-worker who bowed out of the job that Ladybug is currently trying to
survive. Carver was responsible for staging the accident that killed the White Death's wife. Now,
the White Death has gone out of his way to ensure that every assassin who had something to do with
the incident is on the train so he can take them all out at once. He's happy to start with Ladybug,
despite Ladybug's protests that he isn't the man the White Death thinks.
Before the White Death dispatches Ladybug, the two henchmen who have been ordered to
open the briefcase Ladybug was supposed to steal finally complete their task. However,
earlier in the film, Prince got Kimura to crack the case's code and rigged it to blow
when it was opened again. So as soon as the White Death's goons lift the case's lid, it explodes,
blowing Ladybug back onto the unmoving train, followed by the White Death and
several henchmen. This buys Ladybug enough time to escape the White Death's clutches.
The White Death is also distracted by another issue, Prince, whose every
move has been about assassinating the crime lord. When the White Death enters the train,
he's confronted by Prince, and she makes it clear
that the reason she's so determined to take him out is that he's her father.
Prince's grievance seems to be that the White Death never paid attention
to her because she's a girl. While most people would seek therapy to cope with the rejection,
Prince has gone another way, and even as she waves a gun in her father's face,
she still pursues her endgame. Her father is known for killing anyone who crosses him, and Prince
expects that's exactly what he'll do to her. However, earlier in the movie, in anticipation
of this exact moment, Prince rigs her gun to backfire, killing whoever pulls the trigger.
Despite her tears, Prince is actually anticipating besting her father. Unfortunately, while the
White Death accepts the gun, he declines to kill Prince, leaving her feeling slighted once again.
The White Death next encounters the Elder, who the White Death recognizes as one of his predecessor's
henchmen. Years ago, the Elder was suspicious of the White Death and warned his boss of his
duplicitous nature. Unfortunately, his boss didn't listen, resulting in the White Death
taking over his entire operation and setting fire to the Elder's house, killing the Elder's wife.
The irony is that even though the two men hold deep grudges against one another,
both are motivated by the demise of their spouses. In other circumstances, they might have been part
of a great support system for one another, but neither character has any plans to hug it out now.
The pair begins a brutal brawl just as Lemon figures out how to get the
train moving again. However, since Lemon has made it clear that the kids' series
"Thomas & Friends," which revolves around the anthropomorphized train Thomas the Tank Engine,
is his personal guide to life, the opportunity to drive a train has to be a thrill for him.
Whatever thrill Lemon feels quickly wears off when he realizes he doesn't know how to control
the train. It's traveling at breakneck speed and he can't slow it down. If that weren't bad enough,
as Ladybug joins him, he points out that they're on a collision course with another train coming
in the opposite direction on the same track. When a group of the White Death's goons appears,
Lemon volunteers to take them on, leaving Ladybug to the bigger challenge of stopping the train.
Each of them tries their best, but the trains still collide in a spectacular crash. Yet,
against all odds, the train Ladybug, Lemon, and the others are on endures a substantial
amount of damage but manage to stay on the tracks. Despite that small victory,
the train is still hurtling down the tracks with no signs of stopping, so Ladybug continues to
work on figuring out the emergency brake as Lemon fights the White Death's goons.
Apparently, working with Ladybug instead of against him,
as he has most of the train ride, makes Lemon feel a bit warm and fuzzy.
"Sorry I shot you twice!"
"Thanks, man! That shows real growth."
While Ladybug is touched, the moment doesn't last because as the train speeds over a bridge,
Lemon jumps out of the train with one of the White Death's men into the water below.
Elsewhere on the train, the battle between the Elder and the White
Death continues. The men initially seem well-matched. Unfortunately,
the White Death quickly manages to turn things around. After all, you don't earn the nickname
the White Death if you aren't accustomed to doling out a substantial amount of, well, death.
For a moment, it looks like the White Death is going to add the Elder to his undoubtedly lengthy
list of victims. But then Kimura, who, between being shot in the gut and massively hung over,
hasn't been especially useful until this point, picks up a water bottle rolling along the floor
and tosses it at the White Death's head, stopping him before he can deal his final death blow.
As a flashback reveals, the water bottle has played a key role throughout the story. Not
only did Lemon get the bottle of water for free while buying another beverage,
but it was also the water that Ladybug filled with sleeping powder that Lemon drank just in
time for it to kick in as Prince shot him, causing her to believe she'd killed him. Once again,
the water bottle shows up just in the nick of time, ensuring Kimura can save his father's life.
In the front of the train, Ladybug has finally found the handbook with instructions in English,
which includes information about how to deploy the emergency brake.
"We’re good! I got it! No!"
So, Ladybug instead just pulls out the entire emergency brake mechanism, wires and all.
It gets the job done, but it isn't pretty. The screeching brakes bring the train to
a stop way too fast, causing it to jump the tracks. As the train careens out of control,
the momentum causes Ladybug to fall back through the cars,
and while he's hit in the head with a coffee pot along the way, the bulbous costume of Momomon,
an anime character with its own themed car on the train, breaks his fall. The vehicle finally comes
to an inelegant stop in the middle of what appears to be an otherwise tranquil village.
Ladybug, Kimura, and the Elder exit the train. They're all worse for wear but
miraculously still alive. They're followed by a furious White Death.
He once again goes after Ladybug, whom he still believes is Carver. However,
his gun has run out of bullets, so he grabs the gun he took from Prince,
still unaware it has been rigged to backfire. So, as soon as the White Death pulls the trigger,
the gun explodes in his face and he sinks to the ground, dead and with half his head missing.
Immediately afterward, an extremely disheveled Prince appears in the doorway
of one of the remaining train cars. It's unclear where she's been all this time.
"It’s my luck that delivered my father’s corpse at my feet."
"The narcissism on this chick."
Fortunately, neither they nor the viewers have to find out because a truck runs Prince over,
seemingly bringing her life to an end, or at least setting her up for a lengthy hospital stay.
As Ladybug, Kimura, and the Elder walk away from the destruction of the train following
Prince's demise, Ladybug's handler pulls up in a car. While she tries to deny it,
Ladybug knows Maria's intention was to rescue him. He's so touched that he gets
teary-eyed. As they walk back towards Maria's car to leave, Ladybug informs her that he no
longer believes in luck, especially his bad luck. Now he just believes in fate.
Ladybug's change of heart makes sense and viewers may even feel it's a long time coming,
especially since throughout the movie many of the things he's deemed bad luck
could actually be seen as good if looked at from another perspective. For example,
consider when he wasn't able to exit the train earlier in the film as planned because the Wolf
was coming in the same door he was trying to go out. While the Wolf's violent attack on
him was unexpected, Ladybug ultimately wasn't hurt badly and even managed to
inadvertently take out the Wolf before things could spiral too out of control. Ultimately,
it was a pretty positive result for Ladybug, even if the situation wasn't exactly ideal.
As Ladybug explains his new fate-based philosophy,
a pole falls over, crushing Maria's car. While Ladybug might have previously chalked up the
incident to his bad luck, now he wonders if it could actually be a good thing.
Viewers may not spend too much time thinking about who was driving the truck that hit Prince.
However, the movie uses a mid-credits scene to fill in that blank before the film wraps up. The
movie flashes back to the moment after Lemon jumps from the train and lands in the water
below. He takes out the White Death's henchman that fell with him, goes out of the water,
and finds a road where he sees a small truck with a photo of lemons and tangerines on the
side. Lemon doesn't miss the not-so-subtle symbolism and takes the truck as his own.
Now that his brother and long-time partner Tangerine is dead,
it's not clear what could be next for Lemon, but at least his getaway
seems to be going well. In perhaps what's supposed to be a final commentary on fate,
he drives into the village where the train has crashed, and as he heads down the road,
he sees Prince in front of him. Instead of hitting the brakes, he presses the accelerator,
speeding into the young woman who tried to kill him. With that final violent act, another
in a long string of violent acts throughout the movie, "Bullet Train" comes to an end.