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For people, who are only familiar with director Kon Ichikawa's WW II masterpieces "Fires on The Plains" and "Burmese Harp", "The Inugami Family" may seem like an odd and not very essential entry in Ichikawa's filmography, but actually, this is Ichikawa's biggest domestic hit, he directed three sequels to it and even remade it in 2006 as "Murder of the Inugami Clan". This is essential Ichikawa and it's surprisingly little seen in the west.

This is the kind of film where it's best to know very little about the plot, so I'll just give you the basic setting. The head of the wealthy Inugami family dies and leaves behind a last will, which disappoints nearly everybody. The sole beneficiary is a young girl who is not part of the family, but there's a catch. She has to marry one of the old man's three grandsons and if she doesn't the inheritance will be divided among the closest relatives. Naturally, the family starts fighting, but soon things get out of hand, people start getting killed. Our protagonist, private detective Kindaichi, enters to solve things. It's very complex story and demands your full attention. Everyone lies, people aren't who they say they are, the many characters are only briefly introduced, but in the end everything should be clear.

This is very reminiscent of Agatha Christie's works, but even though "The Inugami Family" is undoubtedly part of the detective genre, there's more than that to it. It also has notable elements of horror, family drama and even social commentary, but the clever plot aside, it's Ichikawa's direction that raises this above your average 'whodunnit'. "The Inugami Family" is visually stunning and even experimental for its day.

If you don't mind the occasional violence, the demanding plot and the long running time (though I wouldn't call it overlong) this will be definitely worth watching at least once. As it is with many mystery films, this might prove less effective upon re-watching. Still thoroughly entertaining the first time around.

I'd watched the director's own remake of this about 18 months ago, so figured enough time has passed for me to revisit and not remember it all. A few things were familiar, but so much wasn't, and I don't know what that says about my long-term (or mid-term?) memory.

Anyway, The Inugami Clan is a pretty good mystery flick, and a bit better than I remember the remake being. It feels a little drawn out, at almost 2.5 hours in length, but it generally held my attention. I also really liked some of the wilder editing decisions on offer here. Some shots were cut together really fast, and there were some other trippy sequences that were cool. I think they helped this film generally earn its runtime without feeling too bloated.

this movie worth every minute i spent to watch it , brilliant direction and well organise mysterious story with many twists.its really shocking when you realise that this movie produce in 1976 ,such an amazing storytelling and effects with only simple camera moves .highly recommended . the unconventional story makes this movie more entertaining ,the pace of the story is quite slow in the beginning then gradually become fast that you need to go back in some parts of the movie to catch up with the events . I'm really a big fan to the classic Japanese horror movies ,but this one is totally exceptional and give you a different taste.

I just wonder why this was never released outside of Japan. The writing is superb, really drawing you into the story, and the mystery keeps you hooked. There is just enough horror too to keep you on edge. It's very compelling and sometimes even funny with the detective constantly thinking he figured things out only to be obviously wrong. I don't think you can really predict all the twists. You may get a sense of some but I think the ending is genuinely surprising. It's artistic too with some parts filmed in a very unique manner especially for back then. The atmosphere of this film is outstanding too. I also highly recommend the next film in this series, The Devil's Ballad (1977) aka Akuma no temari-uta. It's incredible too.