The World of Kanako (2014) New Movie from Tetsuya Nakashima, Director of 'Confession'

[Takuma]

A new film by Tetsuya Nakashima, who made himself name with hyperactive music video style comedies ala Kamikaze Girls and Memories of Matsuko. Then, in 2010, he had a change of pace with Confessions: a controversial hit about a high school teacher who avenges her child’s death to her students – with half of the film played in slow motion.

All of them have lots of fans, though I'm not necessarily one of them. Went to see it anyway.

The World of Kanako features Nakashima back to his old habits, only this time the genre is violent thriller. Alcoholic ex-cop (Koji Yakusho) goes on a rampage to find his missing daughter, only to discover she wasn’t quite the pure angel he though she was. In fact, the entire school seems to be populated with 16 year old monsters, which raises amusing questions about director Nakashima possible vendetta for high school kids.

To keep it fair, the father is not much better; beating and raping people left and right on his quest to uncover the mystery. “Shock Therapy Entertainment”, as the film’s advertising slogan states.

The film is ridiculously over the top, but decidedly so, and extremely violent in places. It doesn’t quite pack the punch it wishes it would, and it gets a little tiresome after a while. Few cuts last longer than half second, the film goes from music video aesthetics to animated shots, and there’s constant shifting in time between present and past. Still, some scenes hit the nail with a sledge hammer and bring a maniac grin to the audience’s face.

Koji Yakusho is rather excellent in the lead role, despite the frenetic editor serving his performance in one second shots. Nana Komatsu does sufficient job driving everyone mad as the titular character. Fumi Nikaido appears briefly as a bad girl, nearly unrecognizable with blond hair.

The film caused a bit of stir in Japan when the distributor marketed it to young people by giving students an extra discount. The film is rated 15, but some of the content is 18-level by most countries’ standards and guaranteed to upset moralists. Perhaps Nakashima wanted to tell the kids to behave better or they’ll have a psychopath Koji Yakusho after them.

Trailer

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Nikaido

Japan Times Review:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2014/06/26/films/film-reviews/kawaki-the-world-of-kanako/#.U65RhkAxijE

Third Window Films will be releasing the film in UK in 2015

[One Armed Boxer]

For some reason the screen shot of Koji Yakusho reminds me of Anthony Wong in 'Ebola Syndrome', which depending on which way you look at it isn't a bad thing at all.

The guys over at Twitch recently weighed in with a review, which makes it sounds like a pretty brutal ride -

http://twitchfilm.com/2014/09/toronto-2014-review-the-world-of-kanako-is-gloriously-irresponsible-filmmaking.html

[One Armed Boxer]

Twitch have reported that 'The World of Kanako' has been picked up for UK distribution by Third Window Films, with a release date of June 22nd -

http://twitchfilm.com/2015/01/third-window-films-uk-announces-stellar-2015-slate-tsukamoto-nagashima-kitano-more-gallery.html#5

& in the US distribution rights have been picked up by Drafthouse Films, no set release dates yet though -

http://twitchfilm.com/2015/04/the-world-of-kanako-to-be-unleashed-by-drafthouse-films.html

[One Armed Boxer]

I recently got through watching this one, and would class it as one of the best mainstream Japanese movies I've seen for a long time (a really long time). I posted a full review here -

http://www.cityonfire.com/the-world-of-kanako-2014-review/

The bad news is that the planned UK release on the Third Window Films label has been cancelled, confirmed in a recent article by managing director Adam Torel -

So the only way to keep going is to find small titles which can reach a little further and have a strong following which is why we’ve had to cancel our release of THE WORLD OF KANAKO and cannot take risks on even larger Asian titles as it’s just nearby impossible to get into such a close-knit clique of programmers/cinemas/etc.

(Quote taken from - http://feature.wildgrounds.com/third-window-films/)

As far as I'm aware Drafthouse still has it for the US.

[One Armed Boxer]

Drafthouse has officially announced that they'll be releasing 'The World of Kanako' in select theatres on December 4th, with a Blu-ray and DVD release to follow in early 2016.  For now though, they've released their own teaser trailer -

 

[FilmMomatic]

A kaleidoscopic thrill ride through the bowels of society with blaring J-Pop in the background. Yep, this is The World of Kanako!

 

https://filmmomaticreviews.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/movie-review-the-world-of-kanako/

 

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