Inu-oh (Japanese for "King Dog") is born with unique physical characteristics, and the horrified adults cover every inch of his body with garments, including a mask on his face. One day, he meets a boy named Tomona, a blind biwa player. As Tomona plays a delicate song of tangled fate, Inu-oh discovers an incredible ability to dance. Inu-oh and Tomona become business partners and inseparable friends, using their creative gifts to survive on the margins of society, as song afte... (Full plot summary below)
Enjoy FREE movies and series with your Prime (USA) subscription or when you start a 30-day free trial!
Inu-oh (Japanese for "King Dog") is born with unique physical characteristics, and the horrified adults cover every inch of his body with garments, including a mask on his face. One day, he meets a boy named Tomona, a blind biwa player. As Tomona plays a delicate song of tangled fate, Inu-oh discovers an incredible ability to dance. Inu-oh and Tomona become business partners and inseparable friends, using their creative gifts to survive on the margins of society, as song after song gain them notoriety and propel them to stardom. Through the songs, Inu-oh mesmerizes his audiences on stage, and gradually begins to transform into someone of unequaled beauty. But why is Tomona blind? Why was Inu-oh born with unique characteristics? It is a story about the friendship of Inu-oh and Tomona, who dance and sing to get to the truth and break each other's curse.
Leave your thoughts about Inu-Oh.
| Paste MagazineMax CovillAdapted from Hideo Furukawa’s novel The Tale of the Heike: The Inu-Oh Chapters, Inu-Oh is a true evolution of an ancient artform while also emphasizing friendship, legacy and who has the right to tell the stories of the departed. |
| TheWrapWilliam BibbianiInu-Oh may get messy with its plotting, but that never dulls its impact. It’s a siren scream of a musical: angry and beautiful, rapturously animated and highly infectious. |
| IGNRafael MotamayorInu-Oh is the electrifying, headbanging animated rock opera that film has been sorely missing, with a poignant message and unrestricted animation that reaffirms the visual prowess of director Masaaki Yuasa. |
| PolygonKambole CampbellIt’s a psychedelic, bombastic rock opera, but amid all the energy, Yuasa ponders what stories have been lost as society’s more controlling elements attempt to control how art is made and distributed. |
| ColliderChase HutchinsonAmbitious yet focused, it is a film that draws from both history and fantasy that it then shapes via joyous music. The result is an epic that makes the most of its magic, eschewing the regrettably typical constraints of the form to become something that is both deeply reflective and beautifully realized. |
| SlashfilmCaroline CaoIt becomes futile to resist the intoxication of Otomo Yoshihide's rock music and the visual excess. Yoshihiro Sekiya's cinematography dances with Inu-Oh's supernatural ballad, extending and sprawling across the lakes and stage. Easily, those concerts are the most enthralling and splashiest sequences, recreating the adrenaline of witnessing stagecraft, all culminating into a hell-raising musical finale. |
| Little White LiesDaniel SchindelInu-Oh plays out as if it is a modern version of a song by an itinerant musician, relating a blend of history and folklore to us in terms we can understand. |
| Austin ChronicleRichard Whittaker[Yuasa's] latest, magical and bloody historical musical drama Inu-Oh, is a rock & roll, stadium show, pyrotechnic extravaganza. |
| Screen DailyWendy IdeIt’s fair to say that in this singular piece of filmmaking, with its dense deep-dive into arcane legend and mythology, selling out is certainly not on the cards for Masaaki Yuasa right now. |
| Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangA rich, unstable alloy of history, legend, musical pageantry and cinematic psychedelia, it mounts an argument for mind-expanding, complacency-rattling art in a world that often prefers the opposite. |
