History Film / BulletTrain

* ArtisticLicenseFirearms: The White Death sets up his "Russian roulette" executions by running his revolver down his arm, spinning the cylinder. Modern revolvers lock the cylinder in place, so it won't spin freely when closed. (Old West-style revolvers have a half-cock position which does let the cylinder spin, which may have inspired this move.)

** Japan is notorious for having some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, so it would be highly unlikely for every assassin in the train (most of which are foreigners) to be casually carrying around handguns. (Though justified in context, given that they are assassins or mobsters, and thus are operating outside of the law.)

** Subverted all to hell when Lemon [[spoiler:forgives Ladybug for killing Tangerine and says, "But I found another brother"- but when Ladybug emotionally asks, "Really?", Lemon answers, "Fuck no!!"]]

* ForWantOfANail:
** [[spoiler:During the wedding, Ladybug accidentally spills wine on Wolf's suit and he goes to clean up while everyone else is eating the wedding cake which was later revealed to have been laced with poison by The Hornet. When he returns, The Wolf is greeted with the sight of everyone dying from the poison. Ladybug unknowingly saved The Wolf that day]].
** [[spoiler:Carver was supposed to kill The White Death that night. He instead mistakenly killed his wife, who was out to bail her son out of jail as The White Death was responding to an attack on his holdings in Bolivia]].
** Also, related to the above, [[spoiler:Carver was supposed to be the one on the train, not Ladybug. But Carver bowed out due to a "stomach ache", putting Ladybug into an absolutely over-the-top situation he was not remotely prepared for, culminating with nearly getting his brains blown out for the aforementioned assassination Carver carried out]].

* VillainousBreakdown: The White Death acts stoic and calm for most of his screentime, but goes into a childish tantrum when he learns that [[spoiler:Carver, the assassin who killed his wife and the primary target of his entire revenge plot, was never in the train because he called in sick]].

** The person in the Momomon outfit that Ladybug punches in the face turns out to be a woman - [[spoiler:specifically, The Hornet, another assassin looking for the briefcase]].

* WoundedGazelleGambit: Prince relies on this frequently, counting on youth and an innocent appearance to take enemies off guard. It's frequently successful, too- most notably when [[spoiler:she dupes Ladybug into trying to "rescue" her from Tangerine, resulting in the latter's death.]]

** Japan is notorious for having some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, so it would be highly unlikely for every assassin in the train (most of which are foreigners) to be casually carrying around handguns.

* TattooedCrook: The White Death sports a large back piece that seems like a combination of Russian prison tattoos and Yakuza irezumi. The Wolf is heavily tattooed with Mexican black and Grey work, and Ladybug has an assortment of minimalist tattoos.

* TattooedCrook: The White Death sports a large back piece that seems like a combination of Russian prison tattoos and Yakuza irezumi. The Wold is heavily tattooed with Mexican black and Grey work, and Ladybug has an assortment of minimalist tattoos.

* UnluckilyLucky: Ladybug views himself as extremely unlucky; however, while his luck ''is'' terrible at various points (such as [[spoiler:being a last-minute fill-in for Carver, the assassin the White Death really wants to kill, leading to the ever-escalating nightmare of the train journey]]), at other points it actually works out in his favour, such as [[spoiler:The Wolf randomly dying from his own knife, or being bitten by an extremely venomous snake only after he'd earlier taken The Hornet's antivenom in an unrelated attempt to poison him]].

* ArtisticLicenseAnatomy: When [[spoiler:the Wolf is killed with a knife to the torso, he exclaims “My heart” (in Spanish). Assuming this is meant to be taken literally, the knife is ''way'' too far to the left to have hit him in the heart. It strikes him in the pectoral, where it would more likely have hit a lung or an artery in the shoulder.]]

** [[ZigZagged Zig-zagged]] with the White Death's mooks. On one hand, many of them carry baseball bats and swords, which are the most popular weapons amongst Japanese criminals. On the other hand, the finale features about twenty submachine guns, when even the largest Yakuza clans would be lucky to have half as many automatic weapons in their entire arsenal.

** Subverted with the White Death, the boss of one of the world's most powerful crime syndicates, who wears a rumpled and disheveled suit. It was originally going to be classier, but Creator/MichaelShannon suggested a more disheveled look. [[spoiler: This is probable because he was in mourning for his deceased wife.]]

* BornLucky: The Prince boasts she is this, and it doesn't seem without merit, as [[spoiler: both Lemon and Tangerine see through her act and would have killed her, if not for Ladybug's meddling (drugging Lemon's bottle, which knocks him out before he can shoot her, and appearing just as Tangerine is about to kill her). However, her lack isn't without limits, and after antagonizing all the assassins on the train it ends up running out.]]

* CoolMask: The White Death and his elite killers wear menacing samurai masks. [[spoiler: This is also mocked by one of his henchmen, who tells another that theirs won't do them any good if a rigged bomb was present in the briefcase containing the ransom for The Son. He's proven right.]]

* CreatorCameo / DeathByCameo: Director David Leitch is the luckless civilian killed by the twins' exploding car in their killing spree flashback.

** [[spoiler: The Son, whose fruitless, party-boy lifestyle often got him into trouble and required his mother (The White Death's wife) to bail him out.]]
** [[spoiler: The Twins, whose massacre of a group of his underlings in Bolivia required him to travel there and deal with it.]]
** [[spoiler: The Hornet, whose poisoning of a cardiovascular surgeon prevented his wife from receiving the life-saving surgery she needed.]]
** [[spoiler: And finally, Carver (whom Ladybug is filling in for), who was directly responsible for the death of The White Death's wife after crashing into her car; he mistook her for The White Death himself.]]

** [[spoiler: To a degree, the whole plot of the movie is this. The White Death arranged for all of the assassins who he believes to be responsible, no matter how circumstantial the connection, for his wife's death to be on the titular train. When he finds out that the man MOST responsible was swapped out due to an ailment, he decides to kill his stand-in just for the hell of it.]]

** While expositing about the origin of her alias, The Prince lapses into Russian, [[spoiler: an early hint that she is related to the White Death, who is explicitly said to be originally Russian]].

* GunStruggle: [[spoiler: Ladybug walks in on Tangerine aiming his gun at The Prince and assumes he's about to pull the trigger on a helpless young woman, resulting in one of these. Inevitably, the gun goes off at point blank range and gives Tangerine a gaping neck wound; he bleeds out in a few seconds.]]

* IceCreamKoan: [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]]: The Elder's metaphor about a tree and plums confuses pretty much everyone, even his own son. In fact, it's enough for Ladybug, Lemon, and Yuichi, who were earlier arguing pretty intensely with each other, to take a break from it and instead debate over what it means.

* PunctuatedForEmphasis / PunctuatedPounding: While tussling with Lemon, Ladybug repeatedly [[GroinAttack slams Lemon's pistol into his crotch]] while lecturing him on personal issues at the same time: "Have! The courage! To! Learn!!"

* WoundedGazelleGambit: Prince relies on this frequently, counting on youth and an innocent appearance to take enemies off guard. It's frequently successful, too- most notably when [[spoiler: she dupes Ladybug into trying to "rescue" her from Tangerine, resulting in the latter's death.]]

* RunawayTrain: [[spoiler:Lemon starts the train so survivors can escape Kyoto station, only to realize once they're gone that he doesn't know how to stop. Sure enough, the train is inevitably [[JustForPun derailed]].]]

* RasputinianDeath: Several assassins wind up being involved with the deaths of both the [[spoiler:The White Death]] and [[spoiler:his wife.]]

* WoundedGazelleGambit: Prince relies on this frequently, counting on youth and an innocent appearance to take enemies off guard. It's frequently successful, too.

** The Wolf's Bowie knife is sharp enough to pierce into his chest and kill him ''on a rebound'' after bouncing off the briefcase.

* AbsurdlySharpBlade: The Elder and the White Death in particular wield [[KatanasAreJustBetter katanas]] which slice through seats, pierce steel, [[AnArmAndALeg dismember people]], and even cut vertically upward through a torso and out through the victim's head- in most cases without even slowing.

-->'''Lemon:'' You are really good. You sure you didn't study? You're not even afraid and your lip's quivering. That's a tear. That is really authentic, mate.