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Guilt proves to be a powerful trigger for a retired bomb disposal expert in the Taiwanese action thriller 96 Minutes, when his past mistakes prove every bit as deadly as a bomb planted on board a cross-country express train. Austin Lin Po-hung stars as Kang-ren, still haunted by his failure to prevent a deadly department store bomb attack three years earlier, whose past catches up with him at high speed after attending a memorial service for the victims. Travelling back to the capital with the other attendees, Captain Li (Lee Lee-zen), who was Kang-ren’s boss, receives an anonymous message warning that there is a bomb on board set to detonate in exactly 96 minutes, or if any attempt is made to stop the vehicle or unload its passengers. Clues point to the bomber being on either their train or the one that left a few minutes prior. Both are filled with grieving relatives, scarred survivors, as well as Kang-ren’s own mother (Lu Hsueh-feng) and fiancée (Vivian Sung Yun-hua). With the clock ticking, the police must find the device, identify the bomber and save the day before either train hurtles into Taipei station. Writer-director Hung Tzu-hsuan draws heavily upon classic examples of the disaster genre, especially ’70s Japanese thriller The Bullet Train, and Speed starring Keanu Reeves. Every moment of white-knuckle tension is soon overcomplicated, however, by incorporating not one but two speeding locomotives, populated by carriages of histrionic, self-entitled passengers-turned-potential suspects. Among them is Jacob Wang Bo-chieh’s celebrity teacher, who lost his son in the tragedy and whose estranged wife (Eleven Yao Yi-ti) is on the other train. The memorial organiser (Frederick Lee Ming-zhong) also lost loved ones in the blast, while a mysterious hooded man sporting horrible facial burns (Kent Tsai Fan-hsi) quickly draws suspicion, but the more Kang-ren is challenged, the more details emerge about his mistakes on that fateful day. Hung’s ambitious screenplay poses some legitimate moral quandaries about the value of one life against another, and whether the lives of the many outweigh the lives of the few. Unfortunately, 96 Minutes lacks the narrative dexterity to draw much of a conclusion beyond revenge definitely being bad, while acknowledging and accepting one’s own limitations. Hurtling towards its teary-eyed climax, the film is engulfed not by flames and debris so much as a tsunami of emotional outpouring, as each passenger in turn endures an overearnest lesson on the importance of forgiveness and personal sacrifice. It is a cynical ploy that may spark more action-oriented viewers into reaching for the detonator. Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook
