In Ryota Nakano’s “I Don’t Know You,” the lonely protagonist is something of a ghost to begin with. At age 28, Yuhei (Kentaro Sakaguchi) labors at a glove factory but has no family, friends or lovers. If he were to disappear tomorrow, few would notice and no one would really care.
Based on Nakano’s original script, the film is yet another of his humanist dramas centering on family — and death. But it takes a darker, more tragic turn than his previous work while commenting on the atomization of Japanese society and the fragility of modern relationships. The sort of scampish-but-lovable ghost played by Joe Odagiri in Nakano’s 2025 “Bring Him Down to a Portable Size” is nowhere in sight, nor is that film’s comic undercurrent.
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