With his squashed-in boxer¡¯s face and volatile screen presence, Jiro Sato projects menace almost too convincingly. As the crazed serial bomber in ¡°Suzuki=Bakudan,¡± a performance that won him best supporting actor honors at this year¡¯s Japan Academy Film Prize, he was disturbingly persuasive, as though his psychotic protagonist could take up permanent residence in your brain.
In Hideo Jojo¡¯s ¡°Nameless,¡± Sato once again plays a killer, though this time one cursed with a deadly supernatural power he cannot control, making him as much a victim as a perpetrator. Still, seeing him use that power to repetitively kill becomes like watching someone with an obsessive-compulsive disorder wash his hands again and again ¡ª shock gives way to irritation.
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