Inu-Oh (2021)

 

Long ago, when Noh theatre was
not even named as such, and Japan was split into two factions 600 years ago,
one child is born in a performance deformed, an entity that is ostracized for
being monsterous but will become a talented dancer. This child, INU-OH, will
cross paths with Tomona. Tomona was the son of sea divers who search for
treasure, and were assigned to find the artifacts of the Heike clan, lost
during history, only for the sword that they find in the se to be blind Tomona as
is disembowels his father when the later draws the blade. Thus begins a Masaaki Yuasa film, a historical piece
based on a novel by Hideo Furukawa that will take an unexpected route. In its
tale of these two helping each other with the curses around them based on the artifacts
of the Heike, a clan that were decimated during the Battle of Dan-no-ura of
April 25th 1185 on the sea, this serious tale of how the past will be
interpreted and forced to tow the official line will be told itself by way of
rock musical.

It is a wonderful thing to know Masaaki Yuasa was once an obscure cult
figure, only to finally by the end of the 2010s to become an acclaimed
animation director, with his work mostly available and with his growth in
success from the 2010s without compromising his style. Inu-Oh continues this, with the studio Science Saru co-established by him in 2013 allowing the art style Yuasa has had with his productions to
only refine here over two decades since his earliest 2000s works, cleaner here
but having the flourishes still there when perfect for scenes, like using watercolor
silhouettes for certain moments. The narrative itself is very simple with hindsight
even if the real life history this is based upon being incredibly elaborate and
to be more well understood for a Japanese audience. Contextually, this is
dealing with how this important real life battle, the Battle of Dan-no-ura, has
ramifications in the period setting a long time later when it is retold in song
and stories, where Tomona, needing to free his dead father from the curse of
that sword, one of a few artifacts connected to the Heike with supernatural
power, encounters Inu-Oh, who is also as he is due to the curse of another
artifact from the past, a demonic performance mask. Tomona, in his quest, joins
the ranks of blind biwa players, those who tell through song the tales of the
like of the Heike, whilst Inu-Oh, despite being banished by his father, still
learns the techniques that would become Noh dance, his own curse with the touch
that, the more he appeases the Heike ghosts around him, his limbs will turn
into more human ones as he continues to perform. When the pair become aware, in
a world where the supernatural is completely around humanity, of the Heike
ghosts, Tomona becomes the hype man with his proto-rock star biwa playing to
promote Inu-Oh’s renegade theatrical dance and song performances, where he is
able to talk directly to the slain Heike soldiers, tell their tales in song,
and rest their souls in his art.

This is where the film itself
takes its most inventive turn as, with Inu-Oh only eventually needing to hide
his face under a mask, and Tomona becoming a biwa god for the masses himself,
this is deliberately anachronistic in tone. This predates Beatlemania by a good
few centuries, in pre-Edo Japan rather than Liverpool, of screaming female
fans, as there are also electric guitars in the soundtrack for these rock opera
songs.  This is a real virtue to the
film, as with music having played a good part in his earlier work – with
opening and ending themes for Yuasa‘s television
productions being idiosyncratic and brilliant – this is his first musical in
his career, as it is his first ancient Japanese period story, and it really
works perfectly. I can proudly write that, at one moment, a break dancing
glowing samurai skeleton appears at one point within this, and that is not
factoring in that the music itself, by Otomo
Yoshihide, is insanely good. Not surprisingly, and wisely, one of your key
leads to this playing the titular Inu-Oh is a musician, the lead vocalist and
songwriter of the band Queen Bee by the name of Avu-chan, who is really good in their voice acting and performance.
Mirai Moriyama, as Tomora, does as
much a credible job in his role, singing and acting, with Avu-chan, Masaaki Yuasa, soundtrack
musician Yohei Matsui, and the film's
compouser Otomo Yoshihide creating
the original songs' lyrics. Otomo
Yoshihide is someone I know through the experimental rock group Ground Zero, and his work here as the
main composer is just as perfect for this melding of rock opera, Japanese history,
classic Japanese music, and even some songs you could get away with on a
Halloween soundtrack, least the one (with a stage show in the film with Inu-Oh
surrounded by fake severed hands) dealing with the poor unfortunate Heike soldiers,
beaten and clinging to the enemy ships for dear life, having their hands cut
off and leading to a tree to grow with them in.

This is all in reflection of a
serious theme of this film, The Tale of
the Heike, a huge epic account compiled prior to 1330, dealing with the
struggle between the Taira (Heike) clan and Minamoto clan for control of Japan
at the end of the 12th century in the 1180–1185 Genpei War 1180–1185. With
origins blurred to history, and numerous different interpretations from an oral
tradition, through the biwa playing bards Tomono here is part of, a theme here
is the tale of Heike and trying to control it in power. Tomono and Inu-Oh bring
the rich and varying forms of this story in all forms, whilst in contrast, you
have a nod to biwa players being murdered to silence or steal the stories, or
how tragedy comes into this film in its finale when, to have an official
version of the tale that unites the country, any other interpretations must be
silenced even if by execution.

Whilst this naturally leads to
tragedy, the performances which make up the centre of the film are bombastic
and vibrant, as staying within the world of this film rather than turning into
their own sequences out of the period context, we see 20th century Japanese
rock band performances reinterpreted in terms of how props like safety
harnesses for choreography mid-air would transpire in an ancient setting, or
how to depict with giant shadows the tale of summoning an unnatural whale made
from a thousand dolphins the Heike clan call for mid-sea battle. As a result,
including the eventual drama that comes in, including the envy of Inu-Oh’s
father as his performances are being undermined by his son, this is a vibrant
film to watch, insanely imaginative to view. Science Saru, whose productions include Western co-productions too,
are a really good studio of talented animators just from seeing this film,
where even their use of computers for the animation shows the best, when it is
used for some very cinematic camera travelling shots, in scenes, that would be
painstakingly difficult to have animated hand drawn back in the day and are
incredible without context when they happen.

This is still one of Masaaki Yuasa’s more grounded
productions in terms of style, in that he commits to the period setting, but
with break dancing even transpiring among the peasantry here in this historical
setting, the willingness to take Japanese cultural history and still be
faithful to it with this sense of risk makes the plot more powerful by its end,
including a bitter sweet conclusion where despite all that happens, old friends
will reunite as ghosts in modern Japan and rock on together in the afterlife.
This does not feel like a compromise at all where his sense of vibrancy as a
director, including the talent of the studio behind this, show through, whether
it is trying to integrate the modern rock aesthetic, even seventies and
eighties glam rock/metal, to the world in visuals or music standing out in its
melding of a period setting to its idiosyncratic touches. There is even as well
streaks of horror storytelling that do crop up throughout and add to this
story’s huge emphasis on the afterlife and the ghosts which haunt the living,
including the least expected and gory explosion of a human being even if it contextually
makes sense. In terms of its creator stretching himself into a different genre
or two, Masaaki Yuasa completely succeeded here.