The White Death

> You control your own fate. Or it controls you."
>
> -The White Death to The Elder

The **White Death** is the main antagonist of the 2022 action-comedy film *Bullet Train*, based on Kōtarō Isaka's 2010 dark comedic thriller novel *Maria Beetle*.

He is the cruel and brutal leader of a criminal empire in Kyoto, Japan, who seized control over it by betraying and killing its former leader. The White Death is also the father of the Prince and the arch-nemesis of Laybug and the Elder.

He was portrayed by Michael Shannon, who also played Frankie Lombardo in *Kangaroo Jack*, Richard Kuklinski in *The Iceman,* Bobby Monday in *Premium Rush*, Zod in *Man of Steel*, Rick Carver in *99 Homes*, Colonel Richard Strickland in *The Shape of Water* and Captain Beatty in the 2018 *Fahrenheit 451* remake.

## Biography

The White Death is an expert fighter from Russia, who arrived at a Japanese crime organization with the objective to win the trust of its leader, Yoshio Minegishi. He succeeded due to his skill and worked his way up the organization, until he rallied a large group of the criminals and killed Minegishi, taking the entire empire for himself.

At one point he met his wife, which whom he had a son and a daughter. However, he much preferred his son, sending his daughter down a revenge path against him. One day, their son was arrested and in an attempt to bail him out, the White Death's wife was accidently caught in the middle of an assassination attempt carried out by an assassin named Carver. The White Death himself was not in the car and couldn't help his wife, due to many of his men being killed in Bolivia by the assassin duo Lemon & Tangerine and the emergency surgery of his wife failed, due to a more skilled surgeon being poisoned by an assassin called The Hornet a few days earlier.

After the death of his wife he blamed Carver, Lemon, Tangerine, The Hornet and his own son for her death and decided to give them all the same job of retrieving a briefcase on a Japanese bullet train, in the hopes of them murdering each other. He only succeeded partially, because Lemon survived his plans and Carver was replaced by another mercenary called Ladybug for the day of the plan.

After trying to kill Ladybug, Lemon and a former member of his criminal empire, called The Elder it is revealed that his daughter, calling herself The Prince, was also in the bullet train with a plan to kill the White Death. He managed to avoid her, but she sneakily gives him a rigged gun that kills the one who pulls the trigger.

After the train crashes, White Death is still alive but injured and he approches Ladybug as he is upset he isnt Carver but either way, the White Death prepares to kill him but he had no bullets left and pulls out a secondary pistol. This pistol however, is the rigged gun he took from his daughter. Death aims the gun and fire, but the rewiring reverses the shot, sending it into his cheek and blowing his head in half, finally killing him and avenging all those deaths he caused, either directly or indirectly. His daughter would soon join him in death moments later, when Lemon runs her over with a tangerine truck. As now White Death's reign of terror over Japan has finally ended.

## Trivia

* The White Death's novel counterpart is a yakuza boss named Yoshio Minegishi. Minegishi's character is also adapted into the movie version of Minegishi for a small role.
* Michel Shannon was given a Japanese-American accent in the film when playing The White Death.