Desperate to make ends meet and start over, he collaborates with activist Masaru Koga and his former employee Hiroshi Ōshiro in an elaborate plot to extort money from the government.

For the duration of the journey, Kuramochi must coordinate with Aoki on timing the train's speed and position to avoid incoming traffic while keeping it safe from the speed-sensitive detonator.

Okita calls the National Railway authorities again; this time, he demands US$5 million in an aluminum suitcase in exchange for the safety of the train's passengers.

As the Prime Minister prepares the ransom, police find their first lead when a cigarette pack containing fingerprints of Koga are found at Yūbari Station prior to freight train 5790's departure.

The passengers once again panic when a businessman threatens to pull the emergency door latch open as the train passes through Shin-Ōsaka; they are further exacerbated when they hear of Ōshiro's death on the radio.

Kuramochi relays the information to Aoki and sends a rescue train to provide welding equipment to cut an access hole over the bomb.

Meanwhile, at Haneda Airport, Okita prepares to board his flight, but his cover is blown when his ex-wife Yasuko Tomita and son Kenichi spot him.

[6] According to the director, big corporations expanded during the Japanese economic miracle, but many small business were closing and the All-Japan Federation of Students had lost power.

Thus they decided to focus on the bottom of society—those who lost small businesses, former student protestors, and young cheap laborers—for the three protagonists of the film, whose goal is to have the government pay compensation.

[6] Believing it would be too routine to have only "good" and "bad" guys, Sato used three to make the film more interesting; the Japanese National Railways, the police, and the rebels.

As a result, Sato said they had to stay up all night in their final week and Toei approved what was basically the finished version without any notes because there was no time left.

[6] The director said they tried to cast Bunta Sugawara in the beginning, but he refused after his wife read the script and told him the train was the star and therefore it would do him no good to be in it.

[6] Ken Utsui, whom Sato saw a lot at the studio and had worked with previously, was chosen to play the "soft" element to Takakura's "hard" part.

So Sato said they had a foreign actor lie to the JNR saying he was a German train engineer to gain access and secretly film the room so they could then build their own.

The special effects department rented a snorkel camera to shoot that specific scene, which cost around a million yen a day.

[6] According to Sato, the Japanese box office was "on the border of profit and loss" with one of the main reasons being they could not hold a premiere, which would have provided indirect advertising.

[7] On 9 December 2005, Toei released a special two-disc "Overseas Edition" (海外版, Kaigai Han) DVD featuring the French and English versions.

[9] The U.S. version of The Bullet Train was bundled with Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon and Executioner in the Kill Chiba Collection Region 1 DVD set by Crash Cinema on 18 May 2004.

[10] On 20 November 2007, BCI Eclipse released both the original Japanese and English versions of the film in their Sonny Chiba Collection DVD set, which also includes Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon, Dragon Princess, The Bodyguard, Karate Warriors, and Sister Street Fighter.