Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

The World of Kanako Blu-ray Movie Review

Really Bad Lieutenant

Reviewed by Michael Reuben February 2, 2016

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.

The essential plot of Kanako involves the search by a former police detective, Akihiro Fujishima (Kji Yakusho, Shall We Dance?), for his missing daughter, Kanako (newcomer Nana Komatsu), but Fujishima's motives are part of the film's essential mystery. A thuggish drunk, Fujishima was cashiered from the police force for misconduct and is a regular object of mockery by a former colleague, Det. Asai (Satoshi Tsumabuki). He and his ex-wife, Kiriko (Asuka Kurosawa), split up long ago, and Fujishima became an absentee father. When he receives word from Kiriko that their daughter is missing, his first reaction is to attack Kiriko physically, all the while insisting that they should get back together. Periodically throughout his quest, Fujishima bellows his hatred and disgust for the missing Kanako, as if he finds it painful to be weighed down by the reflexes of paternal obligation that motivate his search. He snarls and screams at everyone and prefers using his fists to asking questions. (He also gets beat down so frequently that it's a wonder he's still walking.)

As Fujishima searches in the present, which extends from Christmas Eve 2012 to Christmas Eve the following year, flashbacks to three years earlier provide glimpses into Kanako's life as a high school student. As in the teenage noir of Rian Johnson's Brick, the apparent innocence of Kanako's school world masks a hotbed of corruption, crime and cruelty. One male student has been bullied into suicide (or perhaps the death was a coverup). Another student who is being similarly mistreated finds his troubles solved when Kanako intervenes—but why does she wield such influence? And what prompts her to take this moping, insecure boy under her wing? Kanako's home room teacher (Miki Nakatani) is unhelpful, as is the doctor she was seeing (Jun Kunimura), a specialist in neurology. Indications of drug dealing, prostitution, rape and murder swirl throughout the student body.

Nakashima tells this story in the jagged style of a waking nightmare, rapidly shifting time frames and perspectives, cross-cutting among wildly different color schemes (including animations and panels from a graphic novel), repeatedly interrupting the flow of events so that viewers are never sure of their footing, much like the dazed and angry ex-cop Fujishima. Although the effect is initially bracing, one becomes numb from the sheer repetition of senselessly violent scenes. To the extent there's a further meaning to Kanako other than sheer love of exploitation cinema—and Nakashima appears to be encouraging the audience to look for a further meaning—it lies beyond all the blood and anger. "Love and hate do not sit on opposite sides of a table", the director has said. "I wanted to portray a good-for-nothing man becoming a father. The loneliness of a man with this kind of nature is not only tragic, but also comic."

The World of Kanako Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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.

The World of Kanako Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

The World of Kanako Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of The World of Kanako (1080p; 1.78:1; 31:25): Interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. In Japanese with English subtitles.



• Interview with actress Nana Komatsu (1080p; 1.78:1; 34:46): In Japanese with English subtitles.



• Interview with author Akio Fukamachi (1080p; 1.78:1; 7:51): The author of the novel that Nakashima adapted for the screen gives his impressions of the film. In Japanese with English subtitles.



• Trailers
• The World of Kanako Trailer
• The World of Kanako Teaser
• Cheap Thrills
• Graceland
• Nothing Bad Can Happen
• R100
• Why Don't You Play in Hell?



• Poster: Folded inside the Blu-ray case is poster for the film, measuring 11"x17", designed by comic artist Tradd Moore.



• Booklet: Drafthouse's booklet contains an essay on Nakashima entitled "No Glimmer of Hope" by James Marsh; notes by Tradd Moore on the creation of the poster, entitled "The Whole World in Her Hands"; stills; and film and disc credits.



• Digital Copy.

The World of Kanako Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.