This intriguing Chinese drama is set in a decaying town in north-west China, on the edge of the Gobi Desert.
In Black Dog‘s dramatic opening sequence, a small bus is the only moving object in a desolate scene of stunted scrub and sparse tumbleweed.
Suddenly a huge pack of stray dogs charges onto the road, and the bus overturns.
Among the passengers is Lang (Taiwanese heart-throb Eddie Peng), a taciturn man returning to his remote hometown after spending a decade in jail for manslaughter.
The year is 2008, and the Chinese authorities are in full swing cleaning up for the Beijing Olympics, determined to show the world the new face of China.
In Lang’s hometown the clean-up involves demolishing buildings, moving out the people and rounding up hundreds of abandoned dogs.
Lang, who needs a job, is recruited to join the dog-catching squad. It’s not easy – the dogs are wary, savage and resourceful – particularly the lean black greyhound mongrel which is reputed to have rabies.
(It was comforting to be reassured in the final titles that no animals were harmed in the making of the film.)
Like the black dog, Lang is a loner. The local gangster, Butcher Hu, blames him for his nephew’s death and he wants revenge.
Hu breeds snakes for their skin, meat and medicinal uses, and among the film’s many dramatic scenes is one where Hu is cornered in a room full of lethal snakes and Lang, wielding a flaming branch, beats off the snakes and rescues him.
Somehow in all this chaos the two loners, Lang and the black dog, bond together. It’s a bonding which outlasted the film shoot – Peng has since adopted the dog Xin.
In his pre-jail life, Lang was a circus motor cycle stuntman and there is a lovely farewell scene of Lang riding off into the sunset with the dog looking up to him from the sidecar.
Black Dog won the Un Certain Regard section –for unconventional movies – at the 2024 Cannes film festival.
Director Hu Guan wrote the script with Rui Ge.
Black Dog is showing at UWA’s Somerville Auditorium from Monday, February 3, to Sunday, February 9.
Watch the trailer…
When I saw the film title ‘Black Dog’ I immediately/depressingly thought it was about depression and mental health
Alas, Margot’s words and the trailer quickly took me down a different path, albeit I suppose some of the subject matter was, well, maybe a little depressing, albeit seemingly filled with hope and the power of love between man and man’s best friend.