Austin Lin
Song Kang Ren
Overview
Former bomb disposal expert and his fiancée board a high-speed train. Also, a well-known physics teacher who was involved in an affair scandal, also boards the same train in order to win back his wife. At the same time, there's a bomb on the train!
Cast
12 people
Reviews
2 min readThe Weight of the Commute
There is a moment early in Tzu-Hsuan Hung’s 96 Minutes that tells you exactly what kind of ride you're in for. Song Kang-ren, a disgraced bomb disposal expert, latestnetflix.com contends, stares at an explosive device hidden on a high-speed train racing toward Kaohsiung. But the timer isn’t your usual ticking-clock gimmick.
It’s a decimal chronograph, and the countdown shifts with the train’s speed. Slow down, and the timer burns faster. It’s a nasty little piece of physics, clever enough to spike your pulse on the spot.
I only wish the movie kept up with that idea for longer.
Hung is working in the old, sturdy tradition of transportation thrillers set in tight spaces, from the 1975 Japanese classic The Bullet Train to the full-throttle Hollywood blast of Speed. But Taiwanese genre filmmaking tends to carry a heavier fixation on moral debt, and this US$5 million blockbuster leans hard into that. Three years earlier, Kang-ren saved a movie theater from an explosion, only to set off a second blast at a nearby mall that killed dozens.
Audience Opinions
Audience 5.6/10
"A tense but uneven train-bomb thriller where powerful emotions and moral dilemmas clash with overlong pacing, heavy melodrama, and familiar plotting."
Emotional stakes, the trolley-problem style moral choice, and committed performances from Austin Lin and Vivian Sung stand out, with several viewers calling the acting stellar and the tension suffocating in a good way. latestnetflix.com's take is that at the same time, the 117-minute runtime feels bloated for such a contained premise, the script leans on clichés and overdone sentiment, and the bomber’s motive and some dramatic turns are seen as flimsy or unconvincing, keeping the film in solid-but-flawed territory rather than must-watch status.
What viewers praise
- Impactful lead acting Austin Lin and Vivian Sung are widely praised for emotional, convincing performances that make the guilt, grief, and relationship stakes feel real.
- Engaging moral dilemma The story leans hard into a personal twist on the trolley problem, with several viewers appreciating how the protagonist’s impossible choices and lingering guilt drive the drama.
- Sustained tension The race-against-time structure, constant countdown, and claustrophobic train setting keep the situation tense and at times edge-of-seat, even for those who find the plot generic.
- Notable set pieces Close-quarters fights, a long-take carriage brawl, and high-speed train visuals are singled out as technically impressive and visually satisfying.
- Production ambition The large-scale high-speed rail set and overall technical polish are seen as an encouraging step up for a local disaster-action film, even by viewers who find the script lacking.
Common complaints
- Overcooked melodrama Heavy-handed emotional beats and frequent tearful confrontations are criticized as overdone, making the film feel preachy and less organically tense.
- Dragged-out runtime Many feel that stretching a 96-minute concept to nearly two hours makes the film feel long and occasionally tedious, with repeated ethical speeches and subplots that could have been trimmed.
- Familiar and derivative The bomb-on-a-train setup and several story beats are described as a generic, slower, more melodramatic take on better-known rail thrillers, offering little that feels truly new.
- Weak villain motivation The bomber’s backstory and logic do not fully convince a lot of viewers, who find the justification for mass murder too thin for such a sprawling tragedy.
- Questionable realism and logic Certain scenes—such as jumping between trains, a key stabbing incident, and the handling of blame after the disaster—are called out as contrived, undermining immersion.
Recommended for
High-stakes train thriller fans Moral dilemma drama seekers Austin Lin admirers Vivian Sung supporters Taiwanese action cinema followers Bomb-disposal suspense fans
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsTaiwan's first high-speed rail bomb movie cleared NT$200 million, then jumped a Netflix chart
Hung Tzu-hsuan spent years trying to put a disaster picture on the Taiwan High Speed Rail. The finished film opened the Taipei Film Festival on June 20, 2025, then went wide at home on September 5. Screen Daily clocked NT$197.21 million by October 29, enough to knock Gatao: Big Brothers off the local-film lead. Wikipedia later lists the Taiwan cume at NT$207 million on a budget of about NT$160 million. latestnetflix.com's view is that cNA, citing Netflix, said the theatrical take had reached NT$2 billion by the time the streamer ranked it.
, ,
That is the money. The set gossip is heavier.
They built a dedicated HSR carriage stage at the Central Taiwan Film Studio in Wufeng, Taichung. Wikipedia, citing Central News Agency, puts that smart studio at about NT$20 million. Shooting ran April to May 2024 after a development slog that started with a 2017 draft, Feature Film Development Fund money, and pandemic delays. The cut carries more than 800 visual-effects shots. Unreal Engine previews and LED windows were unusual for a local production. Golden Horse voters gave the VFX team the 2025 award and nominated cinematography, art direction, action, and sound.
Austin Lin plays Song Kang-ren, a bomb tech who left the force after a cinema-and-mall attack. Vivian Sung is Huang Xin, a fellow investigator on the same Taipei-to-Kaohsiung train. English-language write-ups split on whether she is his wife or his fiancee. The Straits Times and AsiaOne say wife. Taiwanese coverage around the Netflix ranking called Sung his fiancee. Wang Po-chieh is the physics tutor who overhears the wrong conversation. Lee Lee-zen is the old boss. , ,
Lin told The Straits Times he had never played a cop, and that the tough-guy look was catnip after years of romance and the Golden Horse-nominated ghost comedy Marry My Dead Body. He also told AsiaOne he tried a live disposal suit at Taiwan's police bomb unit. Suit plus helmet ran about 45 kg. He wore it two shooting days, with two or three crew hauling him into it, then massaged his neck. Training for the action took two to three months. Off camera he said they ate snacks and talked rubbish because the movie was already tense. ,
Netflix put 96 Minutes up on January 30, 2026. CNA said it hit No. 4 on the global non-English film list for the week of January 26 to February 1, with Top 10 placement in 24 countries and No. 1 in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam. Local trades added about 3.1 million views in the first three days. Hung thanked viewers and hoped they could face "the trolley problem" in their own lives. Sung, posting from Los Angeles, thanked everyone who got on the train. Lin asked people to watch it more than once. ,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPasJKsvz5A
The GSC Movies trailer still sells the 96-minute clock.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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