Spoilers are baffled.

Ah, the late movie. Nowadays I prefer to avoid staying up this late, but there will always be exceptions worth the effort. For this one, we’ve picked a strange one. This is a Japanese crime thriller with a bit of an impossible twist. I must admit that I genuinely was expecting something a little more grounded, but this festival’s common trait seems to be to surprise me with a different feature than the one I had envisioned. Let’s get to some of the details.

Nameless (2026) was directed by Hideo Jojo, who wrote it with Jiro Sato. A mysterious man (Jiro Sato) has been appearing in public places and killing randomly… However, no weapon has ever been seen. Security cameras capture him performing stabbing motions without a knife, swinging a non-existent bat or even firing a gun you never see. The local police are baffled. You will be too, even as the film reveals his backstory since childhood.

The mystery of this man eventually gets to the time in his childhood where he and another young girl were found and put in an orphanage. Given the generic names of Yamada Taro (Jiro Sato) and Yamada Hanaka (Megumi), the kids were put in the system. His identity remains elusive in the present, until a jaded veteran officer Kunieda (Kuranosuke Sasaki) recognizes him from a shoplifting case over a decade ago. The strange power this man wields is compounded by his silent wincing, as he seems also unable to speak. The frustration is that we never learn the nature of his condition.

Recommended for fans of mystery thrillers with reservations. This feature chooses to bring in an accursed premise without ever explaining it. What we’re left is unending tension while the cops try and fail to discover what’s going on. You can only empathize with their plight. I’d say watch it if it seems to strike your fancy, but as resolutions go be prepared to end empty handed.

That will do for now.