The World of Kanako

A pitch-black feverish dream; that is probably the best description of this extremely violent thriller. Based on the bestseller Hateshinaki Kawaki by Fukamachi Akio from 2004, which for a long time was regarded as too lugubrious to make into a mainstream film.
Yakusho Kôji (13 Assassins, Shall We Dance?) plays a divorced and retired detective with psychiatric problems and a very short fuse. He hasn’t seen his daughter Kanako for years when he hears that she has suddenly disappeared without a trace. In his investigation into her disappearance, he finds himself in the grizzly surroundings of drug-addicted kids, powerful paedophiles and sadistic Yakuzas. It also soon becomes apparent that Kanako is not as innocent as she looks.
Nakashima Tetsuya, who previously became engrossed in the worrying world of troubled teenagers with films like Confessions (2010) and Kamikaze Girls (2004), turns this into a hallucinogenic trip in which dream and reality become intertwined and only a trace of humanity can be found.