With lots of lofty influences being tossed around by director James Mangold for the upcoming “The Wolverine” — including Wong Kar-Wai‘s “Chungking Express” and “Happy Together,” Yasujiro Ozu‘s “Floating Weeds,” “Chinatown,” “The French Connection” — we’re pretty sure none of them had a fight sequence on top of a speeding bullet train in Japan. Unless there is some lost Ozu film that we haven’t seen. Certainly, this first clip from the superhero movie doesn’t exactly scream arthouse.
Expanding on a scene teased in the trailers, here we get to witness Logan and Random Yakuza Bad Guy fighting on top of bullet train, in a sequence that’s mostly notable for being a flurry of edits. In fact, everything whips by so fast we’re not sure what exactly they’re jumping over, though it seems both of them get acclimated to orienting themselves on a moving train pretty damn fast. And while this scene still leaves some convincing to be done about what the final result of “The Wolverine” will be, we have to say, we’re kinda digging that score from Marco Beltrami.
“The Wolverine” books a ticket on July 26th.