A young man blinded as child befriends a cursed performer and together they go on the road to tell the story of a forgotten people through song and dance.
Adapted from the novel ‘Heike monogatari: Inu-ô no kan’ by Hideo Furukawa, the film is written by Akiko Nogi and directed by Masaaki Yuasa and their work give life to the written words in a very particular way. The film here is animation with multiple styles being used throughout the runtime, giving each part of the story the style it needs to work best. This adds a dynamic to the images beyond simple animation, giving the film something more for those looking for a visual arts component here. As it is, the film also plays within multiple genres or subgenres, not just on the animation style, starting off as a story that feels like folklore, eventually turning into a revenge story, a story of honoring ancestors, and a rock musical. There is so much in here, it’s easy to get lost a little along the way. Honestly, not knowing this is a rock musical piece, when the first musical number kicks off and doesn’t seem to know when to end, it becomes a bit much. Even as a musical, some of the performance numbers come off a bit too long.
Also, this is being released as a kids’ film, but it has a fairly high violent content for a film thus marketed. Many parents will find that the numerous kills, the blood, and the violence overall may be a bit too much for their little ones. The musical numbers will most likely help bring little ones’ attention to the screen, but as they go on and on, they may very well lose that attention as well. The animation style and how it changes a few times definitely help keep the attention of those with a shorter span, but something about the film is just not right for children here. Of course, each child’s mileage with violent content and monsters may vary, but it is fair to put a bit of a warning for this one. When one goes into this looking for something cutesy, folky, and maybe a bit historical, they will get this, but also a whole lot more.
The film makes the most of its visual side, but it also has a strong voice cast including Avu-chan as the titular character, Mirai Moriyama as Tomona, Kenjirô Tsuda, Yutaka Matsushige, and Tasuku Emoto who all are entertaining as voice actors. The rest of the cast of course works great as well. They all give the characters and the music by Yoshihide Ôtomo life through their work.
Overall, Inu-Oh is a beautifully animated film that plays with different styles of storytelling and animation to mostly good results. The way the musical part comes in is a bit surprising and some of the musical numbers overstay their welcome, but in general, the film is entertaining and has an interesting story to tell with an equally interesting way to go about it.
Fantasia International Film Festival 2022 runs from July 14th to August 3rd, 2022