Black Dog

Director: Guan Hu
Starring: Eddie Peng
Distributor: HiGloss
Runtime: 116 mins. Reviewed in Dec 2024
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes: Animal cruelty and suicide references

Released from jail, Lang returns to his hometown in Northwest China. As part of a dog patrol tasked with clearing stray dogs before the 2008 Olympics, he bonds with a black stray. The two lonely souls embark on a new journey together.

Sometimes moviegoers say that they would like to see something different, a film from somewhere else, with different sensibilities and entry into a world with which they are unfamiliar. Black Dog is an excellent candidate for this.

We are caught up with a striking opening – the camera panning unfamiliar vistas of north-western China with its vast barren plains and black hills, near the Gobi desert. Suddenly, a large pack of wild dogs run rampage across the screen, down the hills, onto the highway where a minibus of passengers overturns as a result of the dog rush. The driver impatiently gets the passengers out onto the road, calls the police, but the rescue is interrupted by a man frantic, accusing the passengers of stealing a large sum of money from his bag. Then a tall morose man walks away, the frantic man accosting him. But, this is not where this film is going.

The tall man, Lang, is the central character. Just out of jail and with a complex past, Lang rarely speaks. We get to know him well. Our wariness soon gives way as he becomes more sympathetic. Lang is played by Eddie Peng – Taipei-born, Canada-educated, and one of China’s most popular contemporary stars.

There is a black greyhound-looking dog, suspected of having rabies, which becomes a target of the town’s authorities. In fact, with the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the offing, this provincial town is eager to get rid of the dogs, many of them pets abandoned by citizens moving out. Lang is seconded onto the dog-hunting squad.

We first see Lang hostile and the black dog marking out their territories. Lang tries to capture him, but, eventually, they bond, especially after Lang is bitten and rabies suspected. So, a film of human and canine friendship.

But, there is a great deal more to Lang’s story, re-meeting his father, now a keeper at the failing zoo, then a sick old man who had supported him in the past, a revelation about Lang’s crime and sentence, a local strongman hostile to Lang because of the accidental death of his nephew, Lang revealed as a former motorcycle champion in the circus, his encounter with friends in the town and with a young woman as a new travelling circles circus arrives.

The narrative is never predictable. There is always an interesting turn in the plot, in the revelation of characters, in Lang’s confrontation with his opponents, but more and more of his kindly disposition emerging. For dog-lovers from any nation, there are moments of sadness, but, ultimately, a sequence to cheer every dog-lovers heart. This is a China unfamiliar to most of us, and an opportunity to visit a quite different place and encounter very different characters.