Tengoku to Jigoku "shinkansen"

[Lawrence Marceau]

First of all, as far as I recall, the original message regarding trains in Japanese
films related to information on published books or articles that deal with the
phenomenon of trains, so I am reluctant to respond to this thread.  However, since I
showed _High and Low_ in my film course last spring, I do recall the train.  It was a
Limited Express (tokkyu*) "Kodama", which the following year was replaced by the
Shin-kansen "Kodama," running between Tokyo and Osaka.  The fact that the new train
inherited the same name as its predecessor seems to have been a likely cause for the
confusion.

    Lawrence Marceau

> There have been a couple of messages in this thread that have mentioned
> the use of the Shinkansen (a.k.a. "bullet train") in _Tengoku to Jigoku_
> (_High and Low_). This struck me as odd, because the movie was released
> in 1963, and Shinkansen service didn't start until the following year.