When you take a course in screenwriting, the first thing pushed is creating a man character that is sympathetic. You want the audience to identify and bond with them. The simple description of The World of Kanako sounds like the main character is incredibly easy to sympathize with. An ex-police detective has to track down his missing daughter who was last seen with a very bad crowd. Sound rather straight forward and easy for an audience to care that he finds his offspring. Except co-screenwriter and director Tetsuya Nakashima gives us a father who might be more dangerous and toxic than any of the people that are involved with his daughter.
Akikazu Fujishima (Shall We Dance?‘s Kōji Yakusho) gets contacted by his ex-wife that their daughter Kanako (The Black Devil and the White Prince‘s Nana Komatsu) has gone missing. While Akikazu is a former police detective; he’s currently working on a road construction crew. This means he’s made a lot of bad decisions and he’s not done doing them. He got a substance abuse issue to go with his excessive anger. The ex-wife immediately regrets reaching out, He forces himself on her in a violent way. His initial talks with old classmates and her teacher are tension filled. You wait for him to explode on them and maybe he does. He learns that Kanako ran with a crowd which were into drugs and partying. This isn’t the always fun partying. Things get tangled up into prostitution, blackmail, crooked cops and Yakuza connections. She might be a bit more involved than an innocent girl swept up in the life with the wrong people. She might share traits with her dad. Akikazu’s trail to find his daughter doesn’t seem to lead towards a happy reunion no matter the outcome.
The World of Kanako is not for the squeamish or people who like linear storytelling. The story seems like it’s being recounted by Akikazu during a drug frenzy. The narrative hops all over the place and there are times when Akikazu puts himself into a past event when we know he wasn’t there. This is a movie that plays better on Blu-ray than a movie theater simply because you’re going to want to hit rewind a few times to grasp what’s really happening on the screen.
The World of Kanako has the same tone as Abel Ferrara’s The Bad Lieutenant with Harvey Keitel. The two films would make a memorable messed up double feature about detectives who are scarier than the people they’re investigating. Akikazu might have a slight edge in being more out of control. The World of Kanako will make you unsure if you want to root for a father to find his daughter.
The Video is 2.35:1 anamorphic. The 1080p transfer brings out the details of high school hell and the nightmares of where Kanako ends up afterward. The Audio is Japanese DTS-HD MA 5.1 and 2.0. Things sound clear no matter how much we jump around in Akikazu Fujishima’s memories. The movie is subtitled in English.
The Making of The World of Kanako (31:25) includes interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. You definitely don’t want to watch this before the film since it opens with the end scene in the movie. The narrator refers to the father as “villainous.” We get rather intimate with how director Tetsuya Nakashima works with his cast. He talks about having Kōji Yakusho go from scary to cool. In Japanese with English subtitles.
Interview with actress Nana Komatsu (34:45) has her reflect on the role a year after being picked to play Kanako. She had modeled before she got into acting. This was her first major role. She wanders around the countryside while talking. She gets deep into how things developed between her and director Tetsuya Nakashima during production. There’s also behind the scenes footage of her during the shoot. In Japanese with English subtitles.
Interview with author Akio Fukamachi (7:50) has him talk about how the novel is a bit autobiographical and based on a real event. The “Puchi Angel Incident” involved school kids and prostitution. He didn’t believe it was going to be made into a movie until it was about to be made. In Japanese with English subtitles.
Theatrical Trailer (1:57) has the “House of the Rising Sun” playing over clips from the film.
Theatrical Teaser (0:50) has the father promise to find his daughter followed by a lot of violent highlights.
Drafthouse Films present The World of Kanako. Directed Tetsuya Nakashima. Screenplay by Tetsuya Nakashima, Nobuhiro Monma & Miako Tadano. Starring Kōji Yakusho, Nana Komatsu, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Joe Odagiri, Fumi Nikaidō, Ai Hashimoto, Asuka Kurosawa & Miki Nakatani. Running Time: 119 minutes. Rating: Not Rated. Release Date: July 9, 2024.
