Bullet Train (2022)

Bullet Train is loud, violent, and often ridiculous. It leans on coincidence and style, presenting a world that feels chaotic and uncontrolled. Yet beneath that surface is a quieter thread. It follows a man who has decided to change.

Ladybug is not merely regretful. He is intentional. He speaks the language of therapy, practices restraint, and tries to reinterpret conflict rather than escalate it. In a train full of people defined by violence, he is attempting something different. He wants to become someone else. What makes this interesting is how the world seems to meet him there. The film unfolds through absurd collisions and unlikely connections. Nothing appears ordered. And yet, Ladybug is repeatedly placed into situations that test his new way of living. He must choose again and again whether he will revert to instinct or continue in the direction he has chosen. The chaos does not remove his need for change. It reveals it.

In this sense, the film brushes up against something like providence. It does not name it, but it reflects the experience of being shaped through circumstances we do not control. Ladybug is not rescued from disorder. He is formed within it. But this is where the film reaches its limit.

Ladybug’s change is self-directed. It depends on his awareness, his effort, his ability to reframe reality. And while that effort is admirable, it is fragile. The film shows how difficult it is to sustain. Growth is possible, but it always feels one step away from collapse. The Gospel speaks of a deeper kind of change.

It does not begin with self-improvement, but with new life. It does not rely on our ability to hold ourselves together under pressure, but on God’s work within us. What the New Testament calls sanctification is not merely choosing better in the moment. It is being remade from the inside out. Circumstances still matter. In fact, they are often the means by which God forms His people. Trials expose what is false. Pressure strengthens what is real. But the power behind that change is not human resolve. It is grace.

Bullet Train suggests that a person can change by seeing differently and choosing differently. The Gospel says something more. A person can change because they are being made new. That is a far deeper hope. Not just surviving chaos with a better mindset, but being transformed through it by a power greater than ourselves.