Black Dog - English subtitled
Multi-award-winning Chinese drama about an ex-prisoner who has to catch stray dogs in a town on the edge of the Gobi desert, but develops a special bond with one of the dogs.
Featuring a canine cast of hundreds, the animal wranglers were surely working overtime on this one-of-a-kind Chinese feature. Eddie Peng stars as Lang, an ex-convict who returns to his dilapidated hometown, which has been overrun with stray dogs. Soon he finds employment in helping to round them up as part of a nationwide cleanup campaign ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Perhaps the real star of the film is a lively black whippet who is suspected to be rabid and whose elusiveness has made its capture something of an obsession for the hapless dogcatchers. Even though their first encounter sees the black dog viciously bite him in the ass, Lang seems to see something of himself in the rangy stray dog. As fellow outsiders the two form an unlikely friendship, which opens the door to recovery and a new sense of self. The buddy chemistry between the dog and Peng proved to be so strong that the actor actually adopted the dog after filming wrapped. The film won the Un Certain Regard Award at Cannes. (source: New Zealand International Film Festival, adapted)