Black Dog

China, 2024,106 min
Director: Hu Guan

Cast: Eddie Peng , Jing Liang, Liya Tong, Zhangke Jia,

You don’t always get the dog you want, but you get the dog that you need.

The outskirts of the Gobi Desert.

Mountains and nearby escarpments look as forbidding as the surface of some uninhabited planet. A dinky minibus is trundling through the scraggly, arid landscape when a pack of stray, semi-feral dogs swoops down from a nearby hillside like a guerilla army launching a sneak attack.

Loner antihero Lang returns to his tiny hometown after being released from jail. He tries to integrate into regular life, but certain demons from his past come back to haunt him.

While working for the local dog patrol team to clear the town of stray dogs before the Olympic Games, he strikes up an unlikely connection with a black dog.

Their story gradually transforms into one of love at first bite.

These two lonely souls now embark on a new journey together.

 Visually stunning, magnificently shot, a resonant, china-noir about taming the mad Dog within has the grandly cinematic vision to lend an intimate tale a gloriously epic, allegorical edge.

“Black Dog,” a fusion of western, film noir and offbeat comedy with a highly lovable mutt at its center.

 Original Language: Chinese