Inu-Oh was reviewed out of the Venice Film Festival, and will be released in theaters by GKids in 2022.
Inu-Oh is the air first-bumping, headbanging animated rock opera about 14th century biwa players and noh performers you didn’t know you needed. Director Masaaki Yuasa turns an obscure chapter in Japanese history into a phenomenal concert experience with stunning set pieces, catchy tunes, and fluid and unrestricted animation that defies comparison, while also including a poignant story about the value of art and its role in preserving history in the face of censorship. If this is to serve as Yuasa's swan song before retirement, then he picked one hell of a last performance that will leave fans roaring for an encore.
Inu-Oh is set in the 14th century during the Kamakura period, after a long and bloody clash between the Genji and Heike clans, which resulted in the decimation of the Heike, leaving their descendants to live in secret in the mountains while their stories become legend. These legends are collected by blind Buddhist monks who perform them with music from wooden lutes called biwas, keeping the Heike people alive in the public's consciousness.
Based on the book The Tale of the Heike: Chapter of Inu-Oh by Hideo Furukawa, which draws on historical accounts but adds a fictional spin to them, Yuasa gets bogged down trying to familiarize audiences — both international and Japanese — with this relatively obscure chapter in history, as well as all its moving parts. A novel's worth of opening text introduces a whole bunch of names, titles, places, and dates that run the risk of overstuffing the table with decorations before the main course can even be set on the plates.
Our entry point into this world is Tomona (Mirai Moriyama), a boy who becomes blind after a fateful encounter with a Heike artifact believed to be cursed, which the Genji are collecting in order to appear more legitimate. Tomona grows up among biwa-playing monks but struggles with keeping his identity among such strict circles. He is unsure whether to change his name to truly belong in his new troupe, and his long and lustrous head of hair runs in direct contrast with the very clean-shaven monks.
Eventually, Tomona comes across a deformed demon boy so ugly his own family, made up of famous theater performers, left him on the streets and is now forced to go around covered head to toe in order to hide his true form. For our blind Tomona, however, the gourd mask-wearing Inu-Oh, with his back covered in scales and an arm at least double the size of his body, is just another human being, one with a particularly strong talent for storytelling, and a seemingly supernatural well of Heike stories just begging to be performed on the biggest stage possible.
Here is where the film goes from being just another period piece to becoming the best rock concert movie in years. Tired of having to adhere to the tired biwa monks’ traditions and rejected by the more upscale noh performers, the two newfound friends decide to stage extravagant performances complete with backup musicians, pyrotechnics, huge stages, and the 14th century equivalent of a David Bowie or Iggy Pop look. Though the monks scoff at the sensual and revealing kimonos, the long hair, and the makeup they consider to be for prostitutes, Tomona quickly becomes a superstar big enough to open his own troupe.
Yuasa has integrated music into his work for years, from the rappers in Devilman Crybaby and Japan Sinks, to the musical moments in Lu Over the Wall, but he takes his skill for musical staging to the next level in Inu-Oh. Aided by Yoshihide Ôtomo’s score, Yuasa turns small, one-man performances into concert-filling affairs, framing the vastness of the audience like it was an ocean made of people, and the titular performer like a renowned rock star that has been working for decades. Whether it's a giant whale made of fire or hundreds of hands from dead soldiers literally rising from the ground, you’ve never a concert like this. Inu-Oh easily sells the idea that, at the time, these guys were creating something completely new that was quickly taking the country by storm like it was Beatlemania.
Avu-chan, the non-binary lead singer of the rock band Queen Bee, lends Inu-Oh a stage presence that easily upstages that of Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody. It helps that Yuasa is visibly influenced by artists like Michael Jackson, Queen, and even Sparks when it comes to Inu-Oh's dance moves and vocals.
The stunning animation doesn't stop at making the concert scenes stand out, as Yuasa continues his signature style of blending limitless, unhinged art styles into something incomparable yet recognizable. Ink wash paintings illustrate the point that we are seeing real history play out (to a degree), while several scenes are framed as if they were moving pictures you can easily pause and frame on your wall.
Like Coco or Hamilton, a big part of Inu-Oh is the idea of memory surviving through art, and the question of who gets to tell whose story. Despite some truly dark moments, Yuasa seems optimistic that, even if it takes 600 years, someone will eventually start singing your truth. If this is to be Yuasa's last song, he's going out with a banger.