Black Dog
Prior to the Beijing Olympics, an ex-con returns to his hometown in Northwest China in Guan Hu’s offbeat and intriguing drama.
Image courtesy of Trinity CineAsia.
The second film with this title to reach UK audiences recently is a work from China by Guan Hu who is well-established in that country but not much known in England. Hu is also one of the three screenwriters here and he gives us a tale set in the town of Chixia in Northwest China on the edge of the Gobi desert. That's a location with which few of us will be familiar and it is the background to a piece that is strikingly original both in character and in the way in which it is told.
Black Dog opens in the desert where we see a bus en route for Chixia carrying among its passengers a man who will become the central figure in the story. He is Lang Yonghui played by the Taiwanese actor Eddie Peng and Chixia is Lang's hometown where his father (Gang Qiang) still lives, as does his uncle Yao (a role played by the well-known director Jia Zhangke). The town is one that is being subjected to demolition work as part of a new development process, the year being 2008. But, if that renders the future uncertain, it is also the case that Lang is dubious as to how he will be received. He is returning after a term in jail on account of his involvement in a man’s death and that man's uncle, Butcher Hu (Hu Ziaoguang), looks set to be seeking vengeance for what has happened. Others welcome Lang back and his uncle gives him a job but his father, an alcoholic, has long abandoned the family home (which is any in any case now to be demolished) and is living in the local zoo. This building is already derelict and has a limited number of animals left in it.
This situation is one that could have been developed in many ways and some critics have viewed the tale as somewhat akin to a Chinese take on the Western. That's not a view that I share and I feel that it may derive from the fact that Lang is a strong presence who only rarely speaks despite being the main character. As such, he brings to mind Clint Eastwood, especially when the latter was starring in spaghetti Westerns, and Peng most certainly has the skill and presence to carry the movie in these circumstances. Nevertheless, that hardly validates the notion that this film is some kind of a Western.
Deciding just what Black Dog is is not that easy. As it goes on there are other elements to be found including a potential romance between Lang and a girl from a circus (Tong Liya) but this is underdeveloped. Furthermore, there are also two approaching events. The tale unfolds in the days just before the opening of the Beijing Olympics (we eventually see the fireworks that celebrate it) and this is also a time when a total solar eclipse is due. However, although these matters all play a part here, they are decidedly subsidiary. What might seem to define the film – and in part does – is the plot development that brings in Eddie Peng’s true co-star, a greyhound named Xin. The film’s opening scene has featured a pack of feral dogs and then on his arrival in town Lang becomes engaged in work to rid the place of stray dogs. One such is Xin and, while the dog’s initial relationship with Lang is hostile on both sides, that soon changes. Not only is Lang ready to adopt this animal and to seek a licence to authorise his ownership of it but an early sign of his good heart is his protective feeling for the dogs and his decision to aid a young girl when her unauthorised pet is seized. Late on we learn more about the reason for Lang’s imprisonment and it suggests that his guilt was less than one might have supposed.
The end credits of Black Dog even include an extensive list of its ‘Animal Cast’ and to some extent this is indisputably the story of a man and a dog and of the bond that grows between them. Xin and the other dogs are handled with singular aplomb and animal lovers will doubtless find much here to engage them. Yet in addition to that the film gives the impression of offering something that goes deeper and the way in which it is photographed plays a huge part in this. It has been photographed in wide screen and as director Hu favours long shots to a quite remarkable extent. If the desert images are striking, even more so are the urban scenes of a town decaying and of buildings empty or destroyed. We are observers of this town, this society. On occasion the narrative itself could be clearer and some elements don't quite earn their place, but from the outset there is a marked sense of originality that leaves one with the feeling that no other film has quite this character. One is encouraged by this to see this film as some kind of metaphor for Chinese society and to find a note of hope when its late scenes include the emergence of shafts of light following the eclipse. Black Dog is a less than perfect film and sometimes elusive, but it uses cinema to express more than is to be found in its surface narrative. It ends with a double dedication by Hu – first ‘For all those who have hit the road again’ and secondly ‘For my father’.
Original title: Gou zhen.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Eddie Peng, Tong Liya, Jia Zhangke, Zhang Li, Zhou You, Hu Ziaoguang, Wang Yiquan, Gang Qiang, Niu Ben, Zhang Jianya, Da Youwei, Yin Yuanzhang, Chobu Huaje, and Xin.
Dir Guan Hu, Pro Zhu Wenjiu, Screenplay Guan Hu, Ge Rui and Wu Bing, Ph Gao Weizhe, Pro Des Huo Tingxiao, Ed Matthieu Laclau and He Yongyi, Music Breton Vivian, Costumes Chen Dian.
The Seventh Art Pictures/ Huayi Brothers/Momo Pictures-Trinity CineAsia.
110 mins. China. 2024. UK Rel: 30 August 2024. Cert. 12A.
