Inugami

Released by Adness
Released on: November 23, 2004.
Director: Masato Harada
Cast: Atsuro Watabe, Yuki Amami, Eugene Harada, Shiho Fjuimura
Year: 2001
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The Movie:

Omine is a small village up in a remote area of the mountainous Japanese countryside. Miki (Yuki Amami) works in this village making paper using the old fashioned methods that her family has been using for ages. She eeks out a meager living but is able to provide for her family members as she is a hard worker with a good head on her shoulders.
Local legend has it that the Bonomiya Clan, of which Miki is a part, has been responsible throughout the history of the area for controlling the Inugami, a strange ghostly dog that haunts the town and its surrounding district. On the eve of some ancient ritual ceremonies, Miki meets Akira (Atsuro Watabe) who is in town to help out at the local school, and the two make love in the rain, taking shelter in a cave afterwards.

Akira, while sitting in the cave with Miki, becomes aware of some howling coming from somewhere close. As the next few days pass by, Akira notices that Miki seems to be getting younger and more nubile, causing her to wind up on the receiving end of some nastiness from some of the local town women. Coincidently (or maybe not!), some strange occurrences are happening around Omine, some of which may be related to Akira's ancestors who live in a village that doesn't lay too far away from Omine itself.

Through the use of some clever editing and unique camera work, Inugami blends sex, horror and mythology into one bizarre but fascinating package. While at times the movie drags a little bit and hedges on falling into 'romantic drama' category (that's not to say there isn't a love story at its heart, because there very definitely is…), it eventually turns up the pace a bit towards the end and while this is hardly a slam bang horror thrill ride, it ends up as a rather clever, moody little movie. The characters are interesting, especially Miki who starts to come out of her shell when her age regresses. Akira isn't quite sure what to think of the situation he's wound up in, few of us would be, and Watabe does a good job of portraying the conflicting emotions that most of us would feel should we ever find ourselves in a similar situation (which obviously isn't likely to happen).

Director Masato Harada (who also wrote the film based on the novel by Masako Bando) keeps the movie looking nice even during the slower moments. The camera does a great job of capturing the small town locations and the paper mill at times almost seems to take on a life of its own. This gives the film a spiritual quality that borders on surrealism a few times but never quite plunges that far off the cliff so as to be incomprehensible or incoherent - just slightly complicated.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Considering some of the more unusual visual changes that occur throughout the film in terms of lighting and color, it would have been easy to mess this transfer up with compression, filtering, and edge enhancement. Thankfully, Adness' 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen presentation looks great with only some slight edge enhancement, virtually no mpeg compression evident at all, and a very clean, detailed image that benefits from natural looking colors and skin tones.

You've got your choice of either a Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround mix or a Japanese DTS 531 Surround Sound mix, both of which come with optional English subtitles that are easy on the eyes and free of any typos. While the 2.0 mix is fine, the DTS mix is the one to go for if your hardware can handle it as it makes very good use of the rear channels to fill in some of the creepier moments in the film. Bass response is nice, dialogue is clean and clear, and there aren't any problems with hiss or distortion in the high end of either of the two mixes.

The only supplements on this DVD are trailers for Inugami, Isola, Shikoku, and Shadow Of The Wraith, all in Japanese with English subtitles and all presented widescreen.

The Final Word:

Inugami is an original horror film with some nice atmosphere and a couple of good scares that differentiates itself from the recent crop of Japanese ghost movies with its unique setting and strange mythology. Adness has produced a great looking and great sounding DVD that is light on extras but still very worthwhile.