Why Suzuki=Bakudan Delivers an Unforgettable Psychic Villain

Although I didn’t find the time to check out Suzuki=Bakudan (retitled Bomb for North America) during Japan Cuts, I’m glad to have caught it at Fantasia Film Festival 2026. Usually, crime thrillers aren’t my thing, but with Jirō Satō getting a lot of buzz, I had to see what the fuss was about. He plays psychic manipulator Tagosaku Suzuki, and he knows how to get under anyone’s skin.

Yes, those comparisons to the Joker from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight are justified. Though he doesn’t sport a grin, what he presents is closer to Jack Nicholson’s performance in The Shining, before madness took its toll on that poor soul’s mind. Because of the way he taunts the police, nobody’s sure if his psychic predictions are real. Unfortunately, those moments claim lives, and while the tragic scenes play out quickly enough to get the point across, the gruesome truth concerns what else he knows.

Like peeling away the layers of an onion, what’s revealed is far more terrifying. There also seems to be some resentment towards TikTok and social media culture baked in here. That’s because one scene shows a video Suzuki made going viral, where he warns another bomb will go off if a certain trigger happens. Nobody wants that, and people start deleting their accounts in a panic!

While the police run around like soldiers with metal detectors, searching for where those bombs may be hidden, they come up empty. What Tagosaku reveals concerns more than just unsettling truths about a few officers and their pasts, which may or may not be relevant to what’s happening. There’s even a mother who’s ready to give up after her son took his own life. Most of the action takes place in the present, with no real flashbacks to explain everything.

Ultimately, if you’re keen to watch Satō take charge of a film the way Anthony Hopkins did in The Silence of the Lambs, go see this one! You won’t regret it.

3 Stars out of 5

Suzuki=Bakudan Trailer