User reviews

As much as I could criticize this for having a fairly thin story, it's not every day you see a halfway-Noh halfway kickass Glam-Hard Rock infused historical-ish musical about a blind kid who becomes a guitar virtuoso and the singer (of the title) who performs the songs that bring in the local crowds while hiding the fact that he got cursed with a giant-long arm and face with three freakish eyes. I'm not familiar with Yuasa like some on here, so I can only take his work here on its own terms; my main takeaway is, I dig how approach to (mostly) tightly controlled lines while experimenting with what seems to be watercolors and CGI.

It maybe wasn't *quite* as weird as I was expecting, but the (excellent) trailer spoke to this being the Gonzo animation event of the year. If Inu-Oh not that, the film is nevertheless a unique, throbbing demon of a tale about... friendship, and connecting with a community that didn't know what it needed in their lives, with gorgeously rendered deranged character designs (aside from Inu oh, how about that set of psychedelic eyes that sets things in motion) and great songs.

No pun intended - I am used to animated movies going places real movies can't go. In this case a lot of songs are added - maybe that is why this is not as out there as other movies are. Still this is well animated (again no pun intended) and has a coherent story and a main character who we can relate to.

That said, I do have friend who do not accept animated movies at all. No matter what they are or represent. Just go with the flow here - watch it in the original audio too if you can to fully immerse yourself in the experience. Suspend your disbelief too - because as the movie says: everything is fiction! And everything is awesome ... of course that is another movie - also quite animated. Can you dig it?

I actually enjoyed it despite the plot not being clearly and etc. I took a bit of break here and their to try figuring out the plot or trying to think or other stuff. But the music was good. The story was good if you can actually figure out the art was amazing. VFX omg loved it I watched it in the japan/Chinese's or the language that it was in. Imma watch it in the English's if they have a English's version. But I still wondered what happen to the sword :^ I'm sure they dropped in the water. And the voice what happen to them and the sword with the blood a lot of detail I wanna know to bad i can't.

Flames, shadows, reflections on water at night, rock music, Japanese drums, stars, and more. The imagery, innovation, and imagination of Inu-Oh baffle and transform the mind.

Based on real life ancient folk theater characters from the margins of society, a masked and deformed dancer (Inu-Oh) and blind biwa player (Tomona) combine to dispel a curse that hangs over them. Their popular performances tell the stories of ancient and forgotten Heike spirits. They are transformative and beautiful. Audiences are hypnotized, and so much so that their performances threaten the ruling elites. The power of stories, music, dance, and other arts takes on the powers that be, with explosive and transformative results.

Inu-Oh is a creative, colorful, and constantly surprising reimagining of actual history. The rock music dance sequences are finely crafted and visionary. Unique and transformative, Inu-Oh is unlike anything I have seen.

Seen at the Toronto international film festival.

"The Gion Shoja bells echo the impermanence of all things." Though these words never appear in the film itself, they throb through the subtext like a living pulse. The Genpei War left such a deep impression on Japanese history that, as is featured in one of the early scenes, a species of crab found in the Setouchi Inland Sea, whose back bears a haunting resemblance to a human face, is referred to as the "Heike crab," in honor of the majority of remaining Heike who perished at Dan-no-ura. The stunning animation and the subversive, transformatively expressive plot is more than enough to draw you in even without the historical context, and knowledge of the war is not essential to the plot, but it is important to understand that the struggle of the two lead characters is layered with more than just their own interpersonal conflicts.

In the great tradition of noh on which the lead character, Inu-oh's story arc is ostensibly based, the film intentionally uses anachronistic, modern music to show the revolutionary effect that noh performers like Inu-oh would have had in their own time. Noh is an art form that exists purely based on reproduction of older works, with added music and abstraction, not to tell a story so much as to work through trauma and to share transcendent moments of universal human emotion. Inu-oh and Tomona, the blind biwa-player he befriends, borrow the Tale of the Heike in order to exorcise their own demons and discover their true selves. Indeed, Inu-oh's physical transformation is symbolic of the power of art to transform us into our true selves through self-expression.

In fact, the film has arguably only two points worthy of criticism. First, a lack of emphasis on the original Tale of the Heike. Especially for those not already familiar with the text - and in modern times, those who know it well are few and far between even in Japan - the emotional weight of those angry spirits supposedly in need of salvation would have added much more texture to the plot and to the significance of their quest.

Second, the film has a subtle tendency to be both ableist and homophobic. The muddled metaphor of Inu-oh becoming physically more stereotypical through good deeds suggests that he could not have become famous with his disability as it was, even though he is shown to be a superior performer precisely because of it, not in spite of it. Alternatively, it suggests that he could not have become famous without stereotypical good looks. The homophobia is more subtle, but partly unavoidable in the historical context, given that master-pupil and patron-performer relationships in premodern Japan frequently contained an expectation of sexual favors, including pederasty as in ancient Greece. Well deserving of criticism in a modern context to be sure, but considering that implied pedophilia (by a villain as well) is the only homosexuality represented - especially given that the two lead characters share a bond which might be considered romantic if only the creators had been bold enough to include physical representation of it - the overall impression is a very modern sense that homosexuality is not something pure enough to have been a part of this artistic interpretation of a deeply inspiring historical figure.

These things do detract from the film on an initial viewing, but the powerful soundtrack, the entrancing visuals, and the both tragic and uplifting story of the two leads have kept me almost vibrating from excitement ever since seeing it roughly a month ago. Although it hasn't been released in the US yet, I must say it is already highly underrated and an instant classic.

Absolutely amazing animation. Unfortunately, the story lacks cohesion across the entire film, along with any strong points to the events portrayed. The music scenes were a great highlight alongside the visually brilliant set pieces. But Inu-Oh's singing was laughably bad (particularly his vibrato). The ending also leaves a lot to desire as well.

I'd recommend this to anyone into unique presentations and doesn't mind a story without a clear point to the overall narrative. Fans of animation will find something to enjoy here. Especially with Inu-Oh's masterful work, artistry, and technical precision. It's definitely cool to observe on a big screen.

An interesting begnning. I as intrigued at first. We had this dog spirit thing slowy turn into a man while becoming friends with a blind man and learning about Heike, lost spirits.

So...this is hard to explain but it appeared to me as if the songs in the movie were just repeating lyrics singing about the dog who turned into a man. IT was dumb, repeated a lot and lasted the entire freaking movie. But it seemed that in the world of the movie, he was singing the stories of the lost souls. But we the audience never hear anything about that.

And instead of having a meaning, theres some whacky time travel stuff paradox garbage. The two main characters die and are reunited in the spirit realm....the lesson learned?... no clue.

I can't begin to describe how disappointing this movie was.

I saw so many people exclaiming how much they loved it, i have seen a lot of Yuasas other work and was very excited to check this out. I have seen people compare it to Belladonna of Sadness and Akira Kurosawa.

What trainspires is nonsense storytelling, terrible visuals, and for a movie about music, the music was truly terrible. I am questioning everything i have ever known about anime, and feel like all of Yuasa's other work is completely soiled by this tragedy. Watch it if you like suffering and ruining your heroes, or if you think you have seen a bad disaster of a film before and think you couldn't see anything worse.

It gets worse, i promise.

Inu-oh is one of the worst productions I've watched this year and I expected way too much from him. He brought fantasy, music labels, and some beautiful stills, which made me look forward to it.

The story seems to be related to the history of the Heike family in Japan? It begins with an urban legend that two officials (I think so) came to the sea and begged the fishermen to take them on a treasure hunt, apparently to find a sword, which unsheathed supernatural powers and the boy lost his sight , his father died. The blind boy then grows up and becomes a musician, during which he befriends the ugly monster inu-oh and helps him transform into a human form while performing with inu-oh.

However, this nearly two-hour movie, apart from its exquisite ukiyo-e style, is really lackluster. It's not a complete, tight story, and if you pay attention to the plot, you'll be as confused as I am: because his plot is weak, and there are many nonsensical passages that I didn't understand. For example, there is no explanation from the beginning to the end why inu-oh's abnormal body will return to its original state after the performance, and the relationship between the man with the evil mask and inu-oh at the end of the movie (maybe I didn't watch it carefully, but this movie It's too ugly) The most unbearable thing is the music bridge in the movie, all the singing is very ugly, very tormented, but the length is very long.

This is a movie with its audience, many people think it is very good, it seems to have won an award at the Venice Film Festival. However, if you don't know the film and its director very well, it's hard to have fun with this film.