The World of Kanako (2014) - Tetsuya Nakashima

Tetsuya Nakashima's The World of Kanako is the filmmakers latest journey into depravity, telling the story of Kanako, a beautiful teenage girl from a broken home who goes missing without a trace.  With all of her belongings left behind, Akikazu, Kanako's father, begins a desperate search for his daughter, intent on tracking her down by any means necessary with the hope of bringing the family back together.  The World of Kanako is hyper-kinetic piece of filmmaking that uses fast-twitch editing, animation, violence, and extremely dark humor to tell its nihilistic tale of one man's attempt to find his daughter.  This is a film which routinely jumps all over the timeline of its narrative, providing insights not only into how Kanako got into this mess of prostitution, drugs, and organized crime, but also providing valuable insights into the home she grew up in, one where she was routinely abused by her alcoholic father, Akikza.  The World of Kanako is a film that begins very much like a personal redemption story for Akikza but as the investigation progresses, the story of circumstances revolving Kanako's disappearance become increasingly deranged.  The World of Kanako's story of revenge and redemption becomes something much more interesting,  a powerful study of darkness.  The morals in The World of Kanako are murky at best, but what Tetsuya Nakashima has created is a film that questions whether love can exist in utter-darkness, questioning the true power associated with paternal bonds.  The film eventually reveals that Kanako herself is far from a victim, being a character whom became seduced by the dark world of drugs and prostitution, manipulating friends and family around her to fulfill her own twisted inhibitions.  This revelation makes Akikazu one of the more fascinating characters to come out of cinema in recent years, a despicable character in his own right who is desperate to get to the bottom of his daughter's death even after learning of her evil transgressions.  He is a man who is desperately trying to hold-off his own self-loathing and despair through vengeance for a daughter who essentially had fallen down the same path of darkness.  Tetsuya Nakashima uses this man's warped morality centered around avenging his evil daughter as an interesting study of the relationship between love and hate, darkness and light, capturing how love can exist among utter darkness, as Akikazu himself essentially wrestles with the internal question of whether he can love a daughter who is a borderline psychotic and certainly a sociopath.   Tetsuya Nakashima's The World of Kanako is a wholly unique experience, full of visceral energy that wold make Tarantino blush, while also being a alluring and subversive study of paternity, love, evil, and vengeance. 

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