Actors playing characters far older and more decrepit than their real-life selves are common enough in film history. Yasujiro Ozu’s favored actor Chishu Ryu made a career of it, playing middle-aged fathers from when he was in his 20s.
Still, seeing the 51-year-old Tadanobu Asano as the dementia-afflicted dad of an adult daughter in Toshiyuki Teruya’s heartwarming “Kanasando” was a shock. Asano rose to international stardom about two decades ago playing volatile, dangerous characters, a prime example being his psychotic gangster in Takashi Miike’s 2001 horror “Ichi the Killer.” His scheming samurai warlord in the hit FX series “Shogun” also fits this mold.
In his latest feature, Teruya (whose stage name as a comedian and actor is Gori), is only acknowledging the sad fact that dementia can strike even vital types like Asano’s character. A former construction company boss living on Iejima island in Okinawa Prefecture, Satoru (Asano) was once a heavy drinker, serial philanderer and possessor of a full head of hair. But when his estranged daughter Mika (Ruka Matsuda) sees him after a gap of seven years, he is in a hospital bed on palliative care and mistakes her for his now dead wife Machiko (Keiko Horiuchi).
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