Black Dog

Unfolding in a dilapidated corner of China on the edge of the Gobi desert, the setting for Black Dog looks almost post-Apocalyptic, although there’s more than a whiff of a Western about its lone protagonist Lang (Eddie Peng). That said, there’s just about something for everyone in this crowd-pleaser from Guan Hu, including the adorable, if often irascible, black dog of the title.

The country is building with the Beijing Olympics of 2008 on the horizon but this place is heading firmly in the opposite direction with large sections being ripped down. Meanwhile dogs abandoned by those who have already left, roam the landscape - writer/director Guan Hu employs them liberally throughout, so that there’s almost always one or two drifting in or out of shot. Lang was once a golden boy round these parts.

A guitarist with a band and nifty with a motorbike, all that ended for Lang when he was locked up for a decade for reasons that still haunt him. Returning to his father’s home, Lang is told the alcoholic old man has relocated to the zoo, where he feeds the animals, a backdrop that also makes for some architecturally interesting shots from Guan, who often pulls back to show Lang observing the scene from a bandstand of sorts on a distant hill. Lang has more than domestic problems, however, with local gangster and snake-meat seller Butcher Hu (Mountains May Depart director Jia Zhang-ke taking one of his occasional twirls on the other side of the camera).

This is a story about survivors, both man and beast, with Lang escaping a bus crash in the film’s opening minutes, and about a slow and ragged path to a redemption of sorts. The narrative arc, though sturdy, plays second fiddle to a character study of the taciturn Lang. After getting into what amounts to a pissing contest with a lanky black greyhound, it turns out the dog is the one with more bite of the two of them and a spot of rabies quarantine leads to a bond. Guan isn’t scared to shift the mood. There’s a dash of romance when Lang encounters Grape (Tong Liya), a circus performer, a certain amount of thriller threat from Guan, a melancholic element fuelled by the use of Pink Floyd’s Mother, and a whole lot of dry comedy courtesy of Lang’s interactions with the dog.

Visually, Guan never puts a frame wrong, whether he’s setting up a physical comedy set-piece, idly incorporating a solar eclipse or letting the dogs steal a scene. The result is a quirkily defiant portrait of an unlikely friendship blossoming in the unlikeliest of places.