For Inu-Oh, director Masaaki Yuasa’s main goal was not to accurately depict the past as it is written, but to depict what could have happened. Based on the novel Tales of the Heike: Inu-Oh by Hideo Furukawa, the film follows two outcasts in 14th-century Japan: Tomona (Mirai Moriyama), a blind Biwa player, and Inu-Oh (Avu-chan), a deformed Noh dancer born with a curse. The two discover they have the ability to hear the spirits of the Heike, a clan of warriors whose stories are lost to time, and the pair begin to perform their stories in a new style resembling modern hair metal, which starts to cure Inu-Oh of his curse. The idea of a curse being cured resulting in the main character becoming human again is popular in Japanese folklore, but Yuasa wanted to have a more modern take. Rather than seeking revenge against his father for cursing him,...
- 1/10/2023
- by Ryan Fleming
- Deadline Film + TV
Using the awe-inspiring visuals and vocals of Taiyo Matsumoto, Avu-chan, and Mirai Moriyama, director Masaaki Yuasa gives audiences an ode to the power of music in “Inu-oh,” a film retelling the Muromachi period in Japan in a beautiful mix of history and fantasy.
Read More: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2023
“Inu-oh,” tells the story of Inu-oh, a child born to an esteemed family but born with an ancient curse that leaves him ostracised.
Continue reading ‘Inu-oh’ Clip: A Beautiful Mix Of History & Fantasy [Exclusive] at The Playlist.
Read More: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2023
“Inu-oh,” tells the story of Inu-oh, a child born to an esteemed family but born with an ancient curse that leaves him ostracised.
Continue reading ‘Inu-oh’ Clip: A Beautiful Mix Of History & Fantasy [Exclusive] at The Playlist.
- 1/5/2023
- by Jamie Rogers
- The Playlist
How do you be an artist in these trying times? Some of the year's best animated TV shows and movies asked this question, and it's not hard to figure out why. In 2022, animators continued fighting for respect from an industry that doesn't often love them back. Animation helped keep the entertainment industry afloat during the worst of the pandemic, and the people who bring these creations to life deserve more than seeing their projects canceled prematurely, having their work scrubbed from streaming services, and inadequate wages.
After all, while it can be crass, bloody, or just too intense for younger viewers, animation can also provide a break from a stressful world — sometimes simply by reflecting back exaggerated versions of our adult concerns. Some of the best animated productions of 2022 explored identity crises, the difficulty of letting go, the struggle to make art, and the absurdities of everyday living. Here are our favorites.
After all, while it can be crass, bloody, or just too intense for younger viewers, animation can also provide a break from a stressful world — sometimes simply by reflecting back exaggerated versions of our adult concerns. Some of the best animated productions of 2022 explored identity crises, the difficulty of letting go, the struggle to make art, and the absurdities of everyday living. Here are our favorites.
- 12/23/2022
- by Caroline Cao
- Slash Film
In the early days of the Academy’s animated feature Oscar, there were questions as to whether enough films would qualify each year for the award to be given. Not anymore! This year sees a record number of contenders across a wide variety of genres, styles and audiences, from serious, adult-targeted films (like “Charlotte” and “Eternal Spring”) to boffo offerings from Hollywood’s top toon studios — and that doesn’t even count such anime franchise sensations as “One Piece Film: Red” and “Jujutsu Kaisen 0,” which didn’t submit but further illustrate the vitality of the form.
Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
Director: Richard Linklater
Voices: Glen Powell, Zachary Levi, Jack Black
Studios: Minnow Mountain, Submarine, Detour Filmproduction
Distributor: Netflix
A time capsule made possible through a sophisticated blend of 2D, 3D and rotoscope techniques, allows the “Boyhood” director to revive the style of “Waking Life” and his own 1960s Texas boyhood.
Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
Director: Richard Linklater
Voices: Glen Powell, Zachary Levi, Jack Black
Studios: Minnow Mountain, Submarine, Detour Filmproduction
Distributor: Netflix
A time capsule made possible through a sophisticated blend of 2D, 3D and rotoscope techniques, allows the “Boyhood” director to revive the style of “Waking Life” and his own 1960s Texas boyhood.
- 12/6/2022
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Masaaki Yuasa’s showstopping animation reframes the classical performance style as a world of rock gods and cavorting dancers
Anime maverick Masaaki Yuasa’s 14th-century rock opera gets off to the most traditional start possible with some stark Noh-style declaiming. But things quickly get pretty wild: Hendrix-ish behind-the-head lute shredding, phantom samurai breakdancing, giant whale lightshows. Retrofitting medieval Noh as a world of guitar gods and cavorting dancers, Inu-oh has its two disabled lead characters make a psychedelic plea in favour of slipping loose from dominant narratives, told in a fecund patchwork of styles by Yuasa that asserts its own outsider credentials.
Tomona (Mirai Moriyama) and Inu-oh (trans musician Avu-chan) are the Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of Muromachi-era Kyoto. The first is a biwa player who, in the film’s opening section, is blinded by a mystical sword lost in a battle between two clans wrestling over the shogunate two centuries earlier.
Anime maverick Masaaki Yuasa’s 14th-century rock opera gets off to the most traditional start possible with some stark Noh-style declaiming. But things quickly get pretty wild: Hendrix-ish behind-the-head lute shredding, phantom samurai breakdancing, giant whale lightshows. Retrofitting medieval Noh as a world of guitar gods and cavorting dancers, Inu-oh has its two disabled lead characters make a psychedelic plea in favour of slipping loose from dominant narratives, told in a fecund patchwork of styles by Yuasa that asserts its own outsider credentials.
Tomona (Mirai Moriyama) and Inu-oh (trans musician Avu-chan) are the Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of Muromachi-era Kyoto. The first is a biwa player who, in the film’s opening section, is blinded by a mystical sword lost in a battle between two clans wrestling over the shogunate two centuries earlier.
- 9/27/2022
- by Phil Hoad
- The Guardian - Film News
What Westerners don’t know about Noh — the classical Japanese theater form in which masked dancers gracefully interpret supernatural tales — could easily fill a 12-hour PBS documentary. But who wants to watch that? Certainly not the audience renegade anime director Masaaki Yuasa is after with “Inu-oh,” a rowdy punk alternative focusing on two social rejects whose defiantly original performance style broke all the rules and elevated them to rock-star status, only to be (all but) forgotten by history.
Among the most unpredictable artists of his medium, Yuasa specializes in trippy, off-the-wall anime features such as “Mind Game” and “Night Is Short, Walk On Girl” that recall the work of psychedelic toonsmith Ralph Bakshi at his anti-establishment extreme. Of all the filmmakers now working in Japan, Yuasa is the last one fans would expect to show an interest in the rigorously rule-based world of Noh — until it clicks that his...
Among the most unpredictable artists of his medium, Yuasa specializes in trippy, off-the-wall anime features such as “Mind Game” and “Night Is Short, Walk On Girl” that recall the work of psychedelic toonsmith Ralph Bakshi at his anti-establishment extreme. Of all the filmmakers now working in Japan, Yuasa is the last one fans would expect to show an interest in the rigorously rule-based world of Noh — until it clicks that his...
- 8/12/2022
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Music is transportive to the extremes in Masaaki Yuasa's works. In his 2008 anime "Kaiba," there's a heartbreaking organ scene that inspires a bitter old woman to reminisce on long-lost affection. In "Ride Your Wave," a cheesy love song summons the spirit of a deceased loved one, fleetingly, like an incantation. Yuasa and Science Saru's latest feature cocktail "Inu-Oh," steeped in the 14th century Muromachi period of the ruling shoguns, rolls out rock music that unleashes the restorative power to unlock revelations to mysteries, gives restless ghosts peace through lyrical storytelling, and allow two misfits to assert their place in the world.
Based on Hideo Furukawa's novel "The Tale of the Heike: The Inu-oh Chapters," Akiko Nogi's adapted screenplay kickstarts the film deceptively. At the behest of shady noblemen, young Tomona (Mirai Moriyama) opens an underwater cursed treasure that blinds him and kills his father (Yutaka Matsushige). The...
Based on Hideo Furukawa's novel "The Tale of the Heike: The Inu-oh Chapters," Akiko Nogi's adapted screenplay kickstarts the film deceptively. At the behest of shady noblemen, young Tomona (Mirai Moriyama) opens an underwater cursed treasure that blinds him and kills his father (Yutaka Matsushige). The...
- 8/12/2022
- by Caroline Cao
- Slash Film
.
“Inu-Oh” (screening theatrically from GKids) represents Masaaki Yuasa’s summary statement about animation, music, history, and rebellion. It’s the culmination of his wildly imaginative and deeply compassionate work about honoring marginalized people. He takes everything he’s explored in “Lu Over the Wall,” “Mind Game,” “Ride Your Wave,” and “The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl,” and explodes it in “Inu-Oh.”
The film’s an anime rock opera set in 14th century feudal Japan about the friendship between two cursed musical performers, who serve as historical versions of modern-day stars with theatrical fearlessness: the real-life, enigmatic Inu-Oh (Avu-chan from fashion punk Queen Bee), a Noh dancer who dramatizes the Heike’s slaughter at sea in the Battle of Dan-no-ura, and Tomona (Mirai Moriyama), a blind biwa player who chronicles the story in song. But the way Yuasa assaults us with dazzling imagery and musical performance, he comes off...
“Inu-Oh” (screening theatrically from GKids) represents Masaaki Yuasa’s summary statement about animation, music, history, and rebellion. It’s the culmination of his wildly imaginative and deeply compassionate work about honoring marginalized people. He takes everything he’s explored in “Lu Over the Wall,” “Mind Game,” “Ride Your Wave,” and “The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl,” and explodes it in “Inu-Oh.”
The film’s an anime rock opera set in 14th century feudal Japan about the friendship between two cursed musical performers, who serve as historical versions of modern-day stars with theatrical fearlessness: the real-life, enigmatic Inu-Oh (Avu-chan from fashion punk Queen Bee), a Noh dancer who dramatizes the Heike’s slaughter at sea in the Battle of Dan-no-ura, and Tomona (Mirai Moriyama), a blind biwa player who chronicles the story in song. But the way Yuasa assaults us with dazzling imagery and musical performance, he comes off...
- 8/12/2022
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
“Inu-Oh” was reviewed by TheWrap out of the 2021 Venice Film Festival.
The competition may be fierce, but it’s probably safe to say that Masaaki Yuasa’s “Inu-Oh” is the best feudal-Japanese-hair-metal-demonic-curse-serial-killer-political-tragedy-rock-opera of the year. At least so far.
And if that sounds silly, that’s Masaaki Yuasa for you. The filmmaker is crafting an exhilarating career out of transforming oddball pitches into profound pop art, from the grotesquely beautiful “Devil Man Cry Baby” to the joyously earnest “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!” The stories he tells, like the intense and unhinged animation styles he employs, can barely be contained on the screen, and they have seemingly no interest in conforming to expectation.
So it’s fitting that “Inu-Oh” centers around art that inspires, that challenges, that defies. The film takes place in 14th century Japan, where a young blind boy named Tomona wanders away from his home in search of vengeance.
The competition may be fierce, but it’s probably safe to say that Masaaki Yuasa’s “Inu-Oh” is the best feudal-Japanese-hair-metal-demonic-curse-serial-killer-political-tragedy-rock-opera of the year. At least so far.
And if that sounds silly, that’s Masaaki Yuasa for you. The filmmaker is crafting an exhilarating career out of transforming oddball pitches into profound pop art, from the grotesquely beautiful “Devil Man Cry Baby” to the joyously earnest “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!” The stories he tells, like the intense and unhinged animation styles he employs, can barely be contained on the screen, and they have seemingly no interest in conforming to expectation.
So it’s fitting that “Inu-Oh” centers around art that inspires, that challenges, that defies. The film takes place in 14th century Japan, where a young blind boy named Tomona wanders away from his home in search of vengeance.
- 8/11/2022
- by William Bibbiani
- The Wrap
Winner of the Satoshi Kon Award for best Animated Feature at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival, Masaaki Yuasa’s film has almost instantly attained a cult following. Drawing on stories told about a real historical figure, it address key developments in early Noh theatre and explores the reasons why some artists risk everything to tell forbidden stories in the face of aggressive government censorship. It is cleverly animated, intelligent and full of passion. Unfortunately, its mingling of the repetitive musical style of Noh with modern metal riffs, whilst it seems to please some viewers, will leave others wanting to scream for all the wrong reasons.
People scream at Inu-ô (voiced by Queen Bee singer Avu-Chan) when they see his face. He has no name them, born deformed, cast out to be raised by dogs, hiding his head inside a gourd from which eyes look out at the wrong angles.
People scream at Inu-ô (voiced by Queen Bee singer Avu-Chan) when they see his face. He has no name them, born deformed, cast out to be raised by dogs, hiding his head inside a gourd from which eyes look out at the wrong angles.
- 8/6/2022
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
A musical hint comes at the very start of “Bullet Train,” out now, when a new version of the Bee Gees’ disco classic “Stayin’ Alive” is sung in Japanese – because an American assassin code-named Ladybug (Brad Pitt) is going to spend the next two hours attempting to do just that, battling half a dozen other killers on a high-speed train from Tokyo to Kyoto.
An over-the-top movie like “Bullet Train” demanded an over-the-top score, composer Dominic Lewis (“The King’s Man”) decided, and he spent more than a year not only writing the entire score but also producing (and in several cases co-writing) the songs heard throughout David Leitch’s action thriller.
Leitch’s previous movies have been littered with songs, Lewis knew (“he’s a needle-drop guy”), so his concept became: “Can I write something in the style of a needle-drop, that feels like a song but is doing the job of scoring,...
An over-the-top movie like “Bullet Train” demanded an over-the-top score, composer Dominic Lewis (“The King’s Man”) decided, and he spent more than a year not only writing the entire score but also producing (and in several cases co-writing) the songs heard throughout David Leitch’s action thriller.
Leitch’s previous movies have been littered with songs, Lewis knew (“he’s a needle-drop guy”), so his concept became: “Can I write something in the style of a needle-drop, that feels like a song but is doing the job of scoring,...
- 8/5/2022
- by Jon Burlingame
- Variety Film + TV
Director Masaaki Yuasa and screenwriter Akiko Nogi’s adaptation of Hideo Furukawa’s novel The Tale of the Heike: The Inu-oh Chapters finishes with a couple screens of text describing its titular Noh performer’s final years of success, despite his name being all but forgotten in comparison to the shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu’s personal favorite. It’s why these three have brought the story of Inu-oh to life—to ensure his name, and that of his friend Tomona from Dan-no-ura, a blind biwa-playing priest, won’t disappear again. What better way to do so than a 14th-century anachronistic rock opera set during Japan’s Muromachi period, courtesy two cursed men who dare give voice to the voiceless and subsequently free themselves from the chains that society uses to bind them?
Though the characters exist 600 years in the past, their story begins about 300 years earlier during a war between the Genji and Heike.
Though the characters exist 600 years in the past, their story begins about 300 years earlier during a war between the Genji and Heike.
- 7/31/2022
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
"Let the world know your name!!" GKids has revealed the main US trailer for Inu-Oh, the latest totally wild new film from Japanese anime director Masaaki Yuasa, known for his vibrant animation The Night Is Short Walk on Girl, Lu Over the Wall, and Ride Your Wave. This premiered at the 2021 Venice Film Festival last year (watch the teaser trailer from then) as a special screening, and it's opening in the US in theaters this August. Based on a classic story about the life of Inu-Oh "King Dog", a 14th-century Japanese performer of music drama at the time of its transition from the folk art of sarugaku "monkey music" into the formalized traditions of Noh and kyôgen. The story is about the friendship between a blind musician named Tomona, and a physically deformed dancer named Inu-Oh, who achieve great success and fame working together. The film's original Japanese voice cast features Avu-Chan and Mirai Moriyama.
- 6/15/2022
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Masaaki Yuasa‘s “Inu-Oh” is an original take on the life of the 14th century titular Japanese Noh dance performer who was extremely popular back in time, but whose legacy was unfortunately lost. Based on the graphic novel “Tales of the Heike: Inu-oh” by Hideo Furukawa published in 2016, the story of Yuasa’s animated musical unfolds against the backdrop of complicated political events, while at the same time embracing fantastic elements and Japanese mythology.
Inu-Oh screened at Udine Far East Film Festival
Although he rose to a Noh legend during his lifetime, all Inu-Oh’s songs were forgotten during the centuries that followed. In the graphic novel and the film alike, the performer was born with terrible deformities which slowly disappear through his connection with music, and even more through the friendship with a young biwa player Tomona (Mirai Moriyama), a musician blinded as a boy by the light of...
Inu-Oh screened at Udine Far East Film Festival
Although he rose to a Noh legend during his lifetime, all Inu-Oh’s songs were forgotten during the centuries that followed. In the graphic novel and the film alike, the performer was born with terrible deformities which slowly disappear through his connection with music, and even more through the friendship with a young biwa player Tomona (Mirai Moriyama), a musician blinded as a boy by the light of...
- 5/3/2022
- by Marina D. Richter
- AsianMoviePulse
An animator long showered with awards and critical praise, beginning with his 2004 full-length directorial debut “Mind Game,” Yuasa Masaaki is no stranger to the festival circuit. But Venice, where his new animated feature “Inu-Oh” is screening in the Horizons section, is his first Big Three festival. And his film is the only one from Japan in the lineup.
“I don’t feel that I’m representing Japan or anything like that, but Venice is a festival with a certain status and influence,” he tells Variety in a Zoom interview. “It was the first international festival to invite Kurosawa Akira. And Kitano Takeshi won its biggest prize. So it’s a festival that has recognized the very top people in Japanese cinema.”
The Japanese media has reported that “Inu-Oh,” an animation about how a blind player of the biwa (Japanese lute) and a Noh dancer with a differently formed body created...
“I don’t feel that I’m representing Japan or anything like that, but Venice is a festival with a certain status and influence,” he tells Variety in a Zoom interview. “It was the first international festival to invite Kurosawa Akira. And Kitano Takeshi won its biggest prize. So it’s a festival that has recognized the very top people in Japanese cinema.”
The Japanese media has reported that “Inu-Oh,” an animation about how a blind player of the biwa (Japanese lute) and a Noh dancer with a differently formed body created...
- 9/7/2021
- by Mark Schilling
- Variety Film + TV
Meet Tomona & Inu-Oh. Asmik Ace has released the first teaser trailer for a new film from Japanese anime director Masaaki Yuasa, known for his vibrant animation The Night Is Short Walk on Girl, Lu Over the Wall, and Ride Your Wave. His latest work is a film called Inu-Oh, based on a classic story about the life of Inu-Oh "King Dog", a 14th-century Japanese performer of music drama at the time of its transition from the folk art of sarugaku "monkey music" into the formalized traditions of Noh and kyôgen. The story is about the friendship between a blind musician named Tomona, and a physically deformed dancer named Inu-Oh, who achieve great success and fame working together. The film's voice cast features Avu-Chan and Mirai Moriyama. This is premiering at the 2021 Venice Film Festival coming up in the next few months, playing in the Horizons sidebar section. There's plenty of...
- 7/27/2021
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
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