Five assassins aboard a swiftly-moving bullet train find out that their missions have something in common.
Unlucky assassin Ladybug (Brad Pitt) is determined to do his job peacefully after one too many gigs has gone off the rails. Fate has other plans, however: Ladybug's latest mission puts him on a collision course with lethal adversaries from around the globe--all with connected, yet conflicting, objectives--on the world's fastest train. The end of the line is just the beginning in this non-stop thrill-ride through modern-day Japan.
Experiencing unprecedented calmness thanks to newfound spiritual enlightenment, retired assassin Ladybug gets back in the game with a straightforward mission: snatch an aluminium attaché case from a speedy Shinkansen train bound for Kyoto, and return it to its owner in one piece. However, there's always a catch to great-sounding deals. As five vicious hitmen vie for the same silver briefcase, hidden agendas get in the way, and everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Undoubtedly, Ladybug is a bad luck magnet. What awaits him at the end of the line is anyone's guess.—Nick Riganas
Code name, Ladybug, is a hitman who's had difficult times and is working with a therapist to reduce stress in his life and to be more positive. He's actively trying to be less violent. He's given an assignment to steal a briefcase from a moving bullet train. Unfortunately for Ladybug, the case is in the possession of other hitmen. Oh, and there are also several other dangerous people and 1 snake aboard the train. As the journey progresses, the briefcase changes hands several times and the reason so many violent people are on the train becomes apparent. The plot is carried on by the device of sudden cuts to earlier events to explain how the current situation develops.—John L Vogel <[email protected]>
In Tokyo, Yuichi Kimura (Andrew Koji) seeks revenge after his son Wataru is pushed off a rooftop and is told to board a bullet train later in the night by The Elder (Hiroyuki Sanada). Meanwhile, guided by his handler Maria (Sandra Bullock), former assassin "Ladybug" (Brad Pitt) (a seasoned American assassin who is suffering from anxiety and who considers himself unlucky) is assigned to retrieve a briefcase from the same bullet train bound for Kyoto after the previous contract, Carver, calls in sick. Ladybug is initially wary, as his recent string of bad luck during his jobs resulted in accidental deaths.
Also on the train is a young woman code-named the "Prince" (Joey King) (a young woman disguised as a schoolgirl who is manipulating the assassins, and who considers herself lucky), who attacked Wataru, and two English assassin brothers called "Lemon" (Brian Tyree Henry) and "Tangerine" (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who are assigned to escort both the briefcase (with the ransom money of $10 M for the Son) and the son of a Russian-born Yakuza boss known as the "White Death" (Michael Shannon) (a Japanese Yakuza member and Minegishi's former advisor), who hired them due to their roles in a job in Bolivia. The Son (Logan Lerman) (the White Death's son who was kidnapped prior to the events of the film).
Minegishi was the Japanese mob boss, and White Death was a Russian KGB who worked up the ranks. Eventually White Death turns on Minegishi and kills his entire clan and becomes the mob boss himself. White Death had a wife who died in a driving accident.
Yuichi is searching for a man who pushed his son, in the first-class compartment of the bullet train, but he finds Prince instead and is tasered by her.
Ladybug steals the briefcase from Lemon and Tangerine but is attacked by another assassin (this time from Mexico), the "Wolf" (Benito A. Martínez Ocasio) (a Mexican assassin and former kingpin of a drug cartel), who blames Ladybug for fatally poisoning his entire wedding party, including his newlywed wife (whom Ladybug had actually saved). Ladybug was about to get off the train at the next station, but was met by Wolf at the door, who attacks Ladybug. Ladybug doesn't recognize the Wolf and denies having poisoned his entire wedding party. But Ladybug was present at the party as a waiter.
After a brief fight, the Wolf's knife throw rebounds off the briefcase and into his heart, leading to his death. Distraught, Ladybug stashes the briefcase away and arranges Wolf's corpse to look like a sleeping passenger. Meanwhile, the Prince reveals to Yuichi that she pushed Wataru off the roof to lure him to the train as part of an elaborate plan to assassinate the White Death, as well as the fact that she has a henchman holding Wataru hostage in the hospital, with orders to kill him should anything happen to her. Prince knows that Yuichi works for White Death and wants him to assassinate the mob boss.
While Lemon and Tangerine search for the missing briefcase, the White Death's son is poisoned and dies in the same manner as the Wolf's wedding party months prior. Prince runs into Tangerine and says she saw Ladybug with the Briefcase that Tangerine is looking for. Tangerine wants to attack Ladybug.
Meanwhile, Ladybug offers the briefcase to Lemon in return for getting off the train. Lemon suspects that Ladybug killed the White Death's son, which Ladybug falsely admits to due to Lemon only specifying that he knew Ladybug had killed "someone" (and Ladybug believing he meant the Wolf), leading to a fight in which Lemon is knocked unconscious, realizing that Ladybug was innocent upon awakening. The Prince and Yuichi find the briefcase and booby-trap it with explosives to kill the White Death as well as Yuichi's rigged gun as a second precaution. Ladybug encounters Tangerine and kicks him off the train after another scuffle, but he manages to climb back aboard. Tangerine realizes that Ladybug doesn't have the briefcase and nor did he kill White Death's son. But he is not willing to let Ladybug go, as he needs a fall guy for White Death's son's killing.
A suspicious Lemon shoots and injures Yuichi (after he finds Yuichi and Prince together but can't figure out who is running the show on the train. He gets taken in by Prince's innocent schoolgirl act and believes that Yuichi kidnapped her) but collapses after drinking water spiked with a sleeping drug that Ladybug brought with him. The Prince shoots Lemon and stashes him and Yuichi in a bathroom. Ladybug encounters yet another assassin, the "Hornet" (Zazie Beetz) (an American assassin who specializes in poisons and disguised as a mascot), who poisoned the White Death's son and Wolf's wedding party with modified boom-slang venom. After a struggle during which they are both exposed to the venom, Ladybug steals her anti-venom to save himself, leaving her to die.
Tangerine runs into the Prince and realizes that she shot Lemon (lemon had put a sticker on Prince identifying her as a bad person), but Ladybug attacks before he can shoot her, accidentally killing Tangerine with his gun. Believing the Prince to be innocent, Ladybug agrees to protect her, despite Tangerine's dying pleas. Yuichi's father, the "Elder", boards the train and sees that the Prince is lying after recognizing the sound of her voice, and informs her that Wataru is safe (an undercover bodyguard had killed the Prince's operative).
After she flees, the Elder tells Ladybug he is seeking revenge against the White Death, who killed his wife while taking over his Yakuza clan (The Elder had a senior position in the Minegishi clan when it was decimated by White Death) and that fate has brought them all together to this end. They discover that Yuichi and Lemon (who had a bulletproof vest on) are still alive, albeit injured, and the four work together to face the White Death. At Kyoto, Ladybug gives the briefcase to the White Death. The Prince, revealed to be the White Death's estranged daughter, tries to goad him into shooting her with Yuichi's rigged gun, but she fails.
The White Death explains that every assassin on the train, as well as his son, was responsible in some way for the death of his wife (with the exception of the Wolf, the Prince, and Ladybug; the latter was hired to replace Carver, who had killed the White Death's wife) and that he hired them all hoping they would kill each other. White Death explains that Lemon and Tangerine had killed his crew in Bolivia and he had to go deal with it. The son got arrested, and White Death's wife went to bail him out, and met with an accident. Only a skilled heart surgeon could save her, but he was poisoned by the Hornet and his wife died on the operating table. Carver was the one sent to assassinate White death and ended up killing his wife instead.
The White Death's henchmen open the booby-trapped briefcase, which explodes, knocking Ladybug and the White Death back onto the train. The White Death's remaining henchmen board and battle the assassins, with the Elder dueling the White Death in a sword fight. Their fight causes the train to hurtle out of control and crash into downtown Kyoto. Emerging from the wreck with the Elder's Katana stuck in his chest, the White Death tries to kill Ladybug but is blown up by the rigged gun. The Prince threatens Ladybug, Yuichi, and the Elder with a machine gun, proclaiming herself to be the new White Death, but is suddenly struck and killed by a passing fruit truck hauling tangerines-later revealed to have been driven by Lemon, avenging Tangerine's death in the process.
Maria arrives to retrieve Ladybug, who celebrates finally getting off the bullet train as Japanese authorities arrive trying to clean up the incredible damage in downtown Kyoto the assassins' exploits caused.
