An influencer hires an actor for a prank; things take a turn for the weird.
Written by Devon Ka-Hang Choi, Siu-Hong Ho, Ka Hei Kwok, Jack Chun-Kit Lee, and Ka-Ching Yung, and directed by Ka Hei Kwok and Jack Chun-Kit Lee, Unidentified Murder, or U.F.O. Unidentified Murder as some of its artwork shows, is a fun mess of a film. It starts in one style, moves to another, has some major tonal shifts (that last sequence feels like it belongs in another movie), and somehow it all makes sense. This is a film that feels like it’s working hard to keep my ADHD brain involved, which isn’t a bad thing here but will definitely not work for everyone.
The cast here is fun with performances that are quirky in their own way. Unfortunately, the cast list on IMDb only has one photo and no character names, so telling you all who did what and who did best is going to be impossible with their actual names, so we’ll go with characters. Lead lady is the only lady for the majority of the run time, and she’s fun to watch evolve, giving a mix of demure yet determined, innocent yet cunning; she creates a full character and makes her more than the token lady of the film. The guys are more numerous and varied in character. The actor playing the actor they hire for the prank may be the most interesting of all the performance-wise. He’s giving a performance within a performance and makes it all look easy, giving the film its backbone throughout all the nonsense. The rest of the cast works decently well in their respective roles, giving the audience more to chew on as they watch all the insanity go down.
There is also no credit that can easily be found for the cinematography, so shout out to the person or persons who shot this, the images are interesting, the different styles work together decently, but some of them make you wonder if they were all really necessary. The darker scenes and sequences, in the woods in particular, work great and let you see that is going on with careful use of lighting. Those scenes with the big light (it will be clear upon watching the film) are just a bunch of fun, adding a great element to the film’s nonsense.
And yes, this film is pure nonsense and it’s fantastic. Who would have thought that a film about an influencer who does pranks for their audience would be this fun? Not this viewer. Overall, there are some issues here and there with the story, but the cast makes up for it. The nonsense is celebrated while the viewer can follow the story through it all. A sold entry in the “influencers as film subject” genre and in the “aliens may have been involved” genre.
Fantasia 2026 runs from July 16th to August 2nd, 2026