Black Dog Feature Review VIFF2024-26

“Bao” has many meanings. One meaning is to protect and defend and another is return, revenge and reciprocity. Both underscore the motivations of the characters in this story.

This is the story of one man’s struggle to redeem his family’s honour and himself in order to restore balance in his life. Guan Hu (writer and director) sets the stage on which to play out this tale in a crumbling, decaying town at the edge of the encroaching Gobi Desert.

At the edge of this fast moving and expanding desert (desertification) we find our main character Lang now thirty years old, (played quietly and thoughtfully by Eddie Peng) returning to his hometown after being paroled for his part in the death of a thief, he was pursuing. It is now ten years later and much has changed since his incarceration. Many people have been forced to abandon the city and their dogs, who are now fending for themselves and running wild.

The first scene is telling. As a lone bus appears on which was once a stable roadway and is now a rough jagged track, a pack/herd of dogs overrun the road causing the bus to flip on its side. As people leave the bus, Lang is accused of stealing money from one of the other passengers. This is later disproved but reinforces the stigma that Lang is carrying into his hometown. Worthy of note, the Black dog also is stigmatised through a unfounded suspicion of having rabies.

Lang is not only returning to his home but also to the consequences caused by his part in the death of the thief. His estranged father has become an alcoholic and is living an isolated existence in the now semi-abandoned zoo, caring for the remaining the animals. The family of the dead man headed by the uncle, Butcher Hu (a snake farmer), is seeking payback.

For quite a while Lang can not find his footing until he is assigned community service with the dog catchers and develops a relationship with the black dog, first as a hunter and then as a saviour.

On many occasions throughout the film the dog saves and redirects Lang on the path of his return to balance. In the end, with the help of the dog, Lang successfully redeems himself with Butcher Hu, by saving his life when his snakes are released during an earthquake.

There are some wonderful shots of Lang in a pagoda situated on a hilltop, thoughtfully overlooking the eroding city bustling with large demolition equipment. Everyday life in the city is described by the skillful use of light, changing from the dark of the sandstorms to filtered light reflecting the particulates in the air.

There are many gems and magic moments in the telling of this story. When Lang and the dog first meet, the dog asserts his territorial rights and urinates on the spot where Lang urinated; the second clip from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”; Lang has trouble killing anything so feeds the tiger porridge and then gives the tiger a live rabbit, (which the dog caught because Lang couldn’t shoot it ) the tiger also can’t seem to kill the rabbit; the dog picking up when Lang drops the ball in comforting his father on his deathbed.

This was an interesting tale however the many components and threads in the telling of this story caused it to lose its way at times reducing it from an excellent story to a good story.