7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Disgraced detective Fujishima embarks on a reckless rampage in search of his missing daughter, Kanako, harassing everyone in her life for any relevant information. Soon, he discovers that Kanako's innocent façade concealed a dark and terrifying world.
Starring: Koji Yakusho, Nana Komatsu, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Hiroya Shimizu, Fumi NikaidôForeign | 100% |
Drama | 19% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
BDInfo says "English" but it's wrong
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
It may be impossible to absorb The World of Kanako after a single viewing, especially if one is
relying on subtitles. Writer/director Tetsuya Nakashima's whirlwind mash-up of grindhouse, film
noir and blood ballet doesn't tell a linear story and relies on a ragingly inarticulate protagonist
who doesn't even seem to be trying to make sense of the events around him. With a fractured
timeline and an editing style that makes Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers look tame, Kanako
pounds the viewer with two hours of violence and transgression, leaving one grasping for the
meaning of it all. I suspect there's more to be teased out of stray bits of dialogue, but the subtitles
on Drafthouse Film's Blu-ray don't (and can't) translate every word.
Nakashima's 2010 film Confessions won numerous Japanese
Academy Awards (including Best
Picture) and was Japan's official submission for Oscar consideration as Best Foreign Film.
Otherwise, Nakashima remains largely unknown in this country, a point stressed by James
Marsh, Asian editor of Twitchfilm.com, in an essay accompanying the Blu-ray. Whether
Drafthouse's release of Kanako will change that is unclear, but the film is certainly appropriate
for the label's eclectic library of unique cinema.
According to IMDb, The World of Kanako was shot digitally on Sony CineAlta cameras, then
finished at 2k on a digital intermediate. The cinematographer was Shôichi Atô, who previously
collaborated with Nakashima on Paco and the Magical Book. Drafthouse Films' 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray presents the film's almost
psychedelic imagery with bright, saturated colors,
solid blacks and a complete absence of noise or interference. The Blu-ray easily handles the rapid
transitions in palette, including cheerful, Hallmark-card-colored inserts appropriate to the
Christmas season and the noir-ish dark shades of the locales where Fujishima searches for his
daughter. The animations reflect a lighter and more delicate palette, while deep reds are used for
blood (which flows copiously) and for graphic inserts that frequently accompany acts of
violence—reminiscent at times of the Batman TV series' overlays of comic book expressions
like "Pow!" and "Wham!" Detail is superior, so that the grizzled and increasingly battered face of
Fujishima becomes like a canvas on which the sordid history of his daughter's life is gradually
drawn.
Drafthouse has mastered The World of Kanako with an average bitrate of just under 30 Mbps.
The film's rapid editing style needs all the bandwidth it can get.
Drafthouse has provided a single Japanese 5.1 audio track encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, with forced English subtitles. The mix utilizes the entire sound array to augment the film's nightmarish environment, with constant changes in audio perspective, voices placed off-camera in the left and right rears, memories mixing with present events, and high-volume impact for the frequent acts of violence (cars crashing with breaking glass are a running motif). The dynamic range is broad, and bass extension is substantial. The film has a score credited to Yôko Kanno, but much of the musical accompaniment consists of selections from opera, choir music and popular songs, including a Japanese version of "House of the Rising Sun" and Dean Martin singing "Everybody Loves Somebody" over the closing credits. The contrast between the songs and the imagery they accompany is frequently ironic, presumably on purpose.
Reviewing The World of Kanako after watching it only once, I am impressed by its obvious
craftsmanship but unsure of where to rank the film. Nakashima's multi-layered exploration of
love and hate may be a visionary work of cinema, or it may amount to no more than a sustained
exercise in self-indulgent nihilism. (The same could be said of Natural Born Killers, with which
Kanako shares many stylistic elements.) The only thing of which I'm certain is that Drafthouse
has once again produced a superior Blu-ray.
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