Inu-Oh

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.

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.

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 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.