A Fortune Worth Killing For

Read Time:8 Minute, 47 Second

MOVIE REVIEWS
The Inugami Family (Inugami-ke no ichizoku)
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Genre: Mystery, Crime, Drama
Year Released: 1976, 2026 Blu-ray
Runtime: 2h 26m
Director: Kon Ichikawa
Writers: Norio Osada, Shin'ya Hidaka, Kon Ichikawa
Cast: Koji Ishizaka, Yoko Shimada, Teruhiko Aoi, Mieko Takamine, Mitsuko Kusabue, Miki Sanjo, Rentaro Mikuni
Where to Watch: available now; order your copy here: www.radiancefilms.co.uk, www.mvdshop.com, or www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: Families can become awfully honest once an inheritance is involved. THE INUGAMI FAMILY begins with an enormous fortune, a dead patriarch, and a will practically designed to make everyone in the room hate everyone else, then spends the next 146 minutes demonstrating just how ugly that combination can become. What starts as a fairly traditional murder mystery slowly opens into something stranger, darker, and far more visually adventurous than expected.

Sahei Inugami built an enormous pharmaceutical fortune, but his death leaves behind three daughters, their children, and decades of resentment waiting for someone to strike the match. His will provides it. Rather than dividing his wealth among the family, Sahei leaves everything to Tamayo Nonomiya (Yoko Shimada), a young woman outside the immediate family, on the condition that she marries one of his three grandsons.

Nobody takes the news well, which is understandable when an unimaginable amount of money is suddenly tied to a marriage requirement. Before long, members of the family begin dying under increasingly unusual circumstances, bringing private detective Kosuke Kindaichi (Koji Ishizaka) deeper into a mess involving hidden relationships, old grudges, questionable identities, and secrets that go back much further than Sahei's death.

There are a lot of names to remember in THE INUGAMI FAMILY, and director Kon Ichikawa doesn't make much effort to simplify things for the audience. Three daughters, multiple grandsons, household employees, lawyers, investigators, and people connected to the family's past all become important at different points. Paying attention isn't optional here, especially once revelations begin changing how earlier scenes should be understood.

That complexity was initially my biggest concern. At two hours and 26 minutes, a mystery this packed with characters could easily turn into homework, especially when much of its first act involves explaining family relationships and the unusual terms of Sahei's will. Instead, Ichikawa keeps finding ways to make the information visually interesting, and the growing hostility between the relatives creates tension even before the murders begin piling up.

Koji Ishizaka deserves plenty of credit for making Kindaichi such an enjoyable guide through it all. He's intelligent without carrying himself like the smartest person in every room, and he has an awkwardness that immediately separates him from the polished detective archetype. He scratches his head, appears slightly disorganized, and sometimes behaves as though he's still catching up with the case, even while quietly noticing details other people overlook.

That personality also gives THE INUGAMI FAMILY a surprising amount of humor. The movie never turns Kindaichi into a joke, but Ichikawa understands that a character this eccentric can relieve pressure without damaging the mystery around him. His interactions with the local authorities occasionally become funny simply because his method and manner are so different from everyone else's, giving the movie small chances to breathe between increasingly gruesome discoveries.

And some of those discoveries are fantastic. THE INUGAMI FAMILY isn't primarily a horror movie. Yet several of its images wouldn't feel out of place in one, especially the pale mask Sukekiyo wears after returning from the war with severe facial injuries. The mask's blank expression becomes one of the film's defining images, and Ichikawa repeatedly uses it to make an already uncomfortable family gathering feel even more unnatural.

The murders become equally memorable without turning the movie into a bloodbath. Ichikawa understands the value of an unusual image, and several deaths are staged in ways that remain recognizable long after the details of the investigation begin competing for space in your head. There's a slightly heightened quality to the violence that fits a story already filled with secret identities, inheritance schemes and generations of family resentment.

That visual imagination extends well beyond the murder scenes. Ichikawa plays with framing, abrupt editing, altered imagery and flashbacks that don't always behave like conventional flashbacks, giving the film a personality that separates it from a straightforward adaptation of a mystery novel. Even conversation-heavy scenes often include a compositional choice that keeps the material from settling into people simply explaining the plot to one another.

Yoko Shimada has a difficult role because Tamayo spends much of the movie at the intersection of everyone else's plans. She's the condition attached to the fortune, making her simultaneously valuable, vulnerable, and suspicious depending on who is looking at her. Shimada gives her enough restraint that it remains difficult to decide exactly how much Tamayo understands about what is happening around her, which becomes increasingly useful as the mystery expands.

The three branches of the Inugami family are less individually inviting, but that's part of the fun. Every conversation feels contaminated by years of jealousy and competition, and Sahei's will essentially takes feelings that have been developing for decades and gives everyone a financial reason to stop pretending. The fortune may provide the immediate motivation, yet money gradually feels less important than everything the family has refused to address.

That becomes one of THE INUGAMI FAMILY's biggest strengths. Solving the murders matters, but the film is equally interested in discovering what kind of family could produce them. Sahei remains enormously important despite being dead before the investigation really begins, because every new piece of information about his life changes the shape of the family he left behind.

The movie asks a lot of its audience, and I won't pretend every minute of the 146-minute runtime flies by. At times, the number of relationships, revelations, and explanations becomes hard to process on a first viewing, and keeping the three family branches straight takes effort. A few scenes could've been tightened without damaging the mystery, particularly once Kindaichi begins assembling information that the audience has already partially absorbed.

Still, that density ultimately feels more rewarding than frustrating. This isn't a mystery where the movie hides everything until a detective suddenly produces an answer the audience couldn't possibly have reached. Ichikawa keeps placing pieces on the table, even if understanding what they mean requires sorting through lies, mistaken assumptions, and a family tree that seems determined to fight back.

The film also has a fascinating history. THE INUGAMI FAMILY was the first film produced under the Kadokawa Pictures banner, launching an approach that aggressively connected popular books with major film adaptations. Seishi Yokomizo's Kosuke Kindaichi novels already had an audience. Still, the film's success helped turn Kadokawa's publishing and movie businesses into parts of the same machine and led Ichikawa and Ishizaka to additional Kindaichi adaptations.

Nearly 50 years later, it's easy to understand why this particular mystery had that kind of staying power. It has the satisfying mechanics of a complicated whodunit, but Ichikawa refuses to treat those mechanics as the entire attraction. The strange humor, grotesque imagery, wounded family history, and flashes of horror turn an inheritance dispute into something far more distinctive.

Radiance's new Blu-ray gives THE INUGAMI FAMILY a particularly strong introduction for viewers who haven't had an easy way to see it. The release uses Kadokawa's 4K restoration and includes the original mono audio, along with a substantial collection of material covering Ichikawa's visual style, the production itself, and the restoration process. Considering how significant the film became in Japan while remaining comparatively difficult to see in North America, it's exactly the kind of release that can finally put it in front of a much larger audience.

THE INUGAMI FAMILY may begin with the familiar question of who is willing to kill for an inheritance, but the answer grows considerably more complicated as Kindaichi digs deeper. By the time all of the secrets, grudges, and identities have been sorted out, the murders almost feel like symptoms of something that had been poisoning this family for years. That's what takes the film beyond a clever mystery. Solving the case is satisfying, but discovering the Inugami family is the part that's hard to forget.

Bonus Materials:
4K restoration by Kadokawa Pictures
Original uncompressed mono audio
Newly filmed interview with Aaron Gerow on the film’s impact in Japan (2026)
Secrets of Kon Ichikawa’s Visual Style – archival documentary (44 mins)
Outtakes from Secrets of Kon Ichikawa’s Visual Style (8 mins)
Archival making-of documentary, featuring interviews with director Kon Ichikawa, star Koji Ishizaka and editor Chizuko Osada (30 mins)
Archival interview with star Koji Ishizaka (16 mins)
Archival documentary on the 4K restoration process (12 mins)
Trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Yuka Kimbara
Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

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[photo courtesy of RADIANCE FILMS, MVD ENTERTAINMENT]

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