David Leitch is no stranger to chaos. Leitch is one half of the team who made John Wick an unkillable action movie icon and shocked us all with the demented Deadpool 2. His new film Bullet Train, starring Brad Pitt, takes things to a whole new level ramping up the thrills to unprecedented heights.
It’s possible, though, that you missed a few key details in all the carnage. So we thought it’d be nice to write a Bullet Train ending explained to catch you up on this bonkers movie. Pitt plays Ladybug, an anxious ‘snatch and grab man’ looking to escape ‘the life’. Tasked with retrieving a suitcase by his handler, he hops on a Kyoto-bound bullet train, unaware of the madness about to consume his life.
Once on the train, Ladybug quickly finds the case – which is in the possession of two mercenaries, Tangerine and Lemon (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry). Tangerine and Lemon are transporting the deadbeat son of a feared crime boss, known as the White Death (Michael Shannon), to his father, after he was kidnapped along with the ransom money, which is in the case Ladybug is after.
Bullet Train ending explained
Stealing the case from the hapless duo, Ladybug goes to leave the train. Before he can get off, though, another criminal, The Wolf (Benito A. Martínez Ocasio), boards the train, and it quickly becomes clear that Ladybug’s easy job is getting complicated.
Meanwhile, in first class, another player has entered the game. Prince (Joey King), a criminal mastermind who just so happens to be a teen girl, has manipulated a down-and-out father, Yuichi (Yuichi Kimura), into getting on the train by threatening to murder his son. Prince is plotting to murder The White Death and wants Yuichi to be her assassin.
Tangerine and Lemon then realise they’ve been relieved of the case, and they start hunting the train for Ladybug. But while they’re gone, the White Death’s son is killed by yet another assassin, further complicating an already messy mission.
As the various assassins and killers collide, Ladybug accidentally kills The Wolf, confronts Tangerine and Lemon, and runs into Channing Tatum – who may or may not be playing a sex tourist. In the madness, Ladybug stashes the case in the first class carriage, where it’s found by Prince and Yuichi.
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Prince plants bombs in the case and Yuichi’s gun, explaining that The White Death likes to execute people with their own weapons. He’ll expect the bomb in the case, but he won’t realise Yuichi’s gun has been rigged to explode, and when he pulls the trigger, it’ll take him out.
Convinced the case is safe, Ladybug hides out in a bathroom, and while he’s in there, Lemon runs into Prince and Yuichi. Realising that Prince is the mastermind (a Diesel from Thomas the Tank Engine in his words) behind most of the chaos on the train, Lemon shoots Yuichi and goes to kill the young girl.
Before he can, though, Lemon’s knocked out by drugs that Ladybug slipped into his water (I told you it was complicated). Prince shoots Lemon and drags both him and Yuichi into the bathroom. As Tangerine hunts for his brother, it becomes clear to The White Death that all is not well, and he makes arrangements to meet the train at Kyoto.
There’s a lot more blood and bruises exchanged as Ladybug battles his way through the train. Along the way, he exposes the mysterious assassin who killed White Death’s son as The Hornet (Zazie Beetz) – a killer who takes people out using deadly poison. As the train nears its penultimate stop, the violence reaches a crescendo.
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Tangerine is killed by his own gun, The Hornet is poisoned, and Ladybug gets the case back but is tricked by Prince into becoming her protector. All seems lost until Yuichi’s father, The Elder (Hiroyuki Sanada), boards the train and exposes Prince. Explaining the backstory of the White Death to Ladybug, he reveals his plot to murder the crime boss.
Oh, and Lemon and Yuichi survived as well! This is good because the White Death doesn’t f*ck about. As the train finally gets to Kyoto, all is revealed. It was The White Death who was behind all of the madness. He put everyone on the train as each and every one of the killers and assassins played a role in his wife’s death, and he wants revenge.
Well, nearly everyone. Ladybug didn’t. It turns out that Carver (played by an uncredited Ryan Reynolds) killed White Death’s wife and was assigned the snatch and grab job. White Death didn’t count on Ladybug replacing Carver at the last minute. Oh, and Prince is White Death’s daughter who hates her dear old dad for giving preferential treatment to his worthless son.
As White Death goes to kill Ladybug, his hapless henchman opens the case rigged with explosives, and everyone’s blown onto the train. At that exact moment, Lemon starts the train up, and they’re on the rails once again.
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As The Elder and Yuichi have a sword fight with The White Death, Lemon and Ladybug try and slow down the now dangerously accelerating train. They don’t succeed, and the plan literally goes off the rails along with the train. The White Death is defeated by the Elder with some help from a water bottle, and Lemon is thrown from the train as it crashes into a rural Japanese town.
The job appears to have ended in disaster, but Ladybug, Yoichi, and The Elder have all survived. Unfortunately, so has The White Death, who shoots Ladybug. Luckily he used Prince’s rigged gun, and he’s turned into chunky meat salsa. It’s not over yet, though, Prince also survived, and she wants to claim her father’s place as Japan’s most feared crime lord.
As she rants and raves about her new position, she’s run over by Lemon, who’s driving a Tangerine truck. With it all over, Ladybug rests as his handler, played by Sandra Bullock, turns up to collect him.
Bullet Train is in theatres now. If you want to know more, check out our glowing Bullet Train review or read our interview with David Leitch.