Cannes 2024: Hu Guan’s ‘Black Dog’ Film is One of the Best of the Fest
by Alex Billington
May 19, 2024
This film instantly joins the ranks as one of the best dogs movies ever made. There’s usually one or two of these every year, so the “best dog movies ever” subgenre is constantly growing, but that’s also totally fine. As a dog lover, I am more than happy to keep adding amazing movies to “best of” list. Especially when there’s a new story to tell, especially when the production takes care of the dogs and animals on set, especially when the film makes you feel even more in love with dogs (if that’s even possible). Black Dog is a new film from China from a filmmaker named Hu Guan, who has already made plenty of other feature films before this. He’s obviously a dog lover, there’s no way he could make this film if he wasn’t. There’s also a title card at the end when the credits come up stating that no animals were harmed in the making of the film, and all of the animals on set were properly taken care of. This is expected nowadays, of course, but it is still an important reassurance because it’s a tricky film to pull off with a plot that involves some of the animals being harmed.
Directed by Hu Guan, and written by Rui Ge & Hu Guan, the film follows a quiet man named Lang (played by Eddie Peng) who returns to his dusty, desolate hometown in Northwest China after being released from prison. It’s set just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and they try to deal with their local stray dog problem. The town is an industrial town, overrun with stray dogs when many people who used to live there left them behind. They create a squad to round up and “get rid of” the stray dogs, hoping it will bring more industry back, with a prize for finding & capturing one rabid black dog that is running around. However, it turns out this very thin black dog doesn’t have rabies and is just living on his own, doing his own thing (successfully outsmarting the collection squad). After encountering him, Lang builds a connection with the black dog and hides him in his home. The two become friends and it changes their lives – eventually the entire town. This film is so my jam. I love the rough storytelling and the way the pacing quickly progresses through time with just a few cuts. It’s a special film that is more haggard than some might expect from Hollywood movies. But that style keeps it moving, with the plot growing & building into something more meaningful as it plays out.
Aside from being a wonderful film about a man and his dog, Black Dog is also one the most compassionate films I’ve ever watched – deeply inspiring and touching in its care & concern for others. It does initially play with the just-out-of-prison trope of a man who doesn’t want to drift back to his past so he refuses to engage with any of the thugs who try to rile him up. But it goes much further beyond that, showing how caring and compassionate he is towards everyone he encounters, whether it be helping lonely old men leftover in town, caring for other animals he meets, including tons of other dogs, as well as the local top businessman butcher who still holds a grudge towards him from the crime he committed years before. Everything that happens with the animals is also sensitively handled by a filmmaker who clearly doesn’t want to harm animals even if it’s a part of the plot. There were several dog actors playing the titular black dog in the film. One of them in the film became very close with the lead actor Eddie Peng on the set and he adopted her (and a few others) and they’ve been together ever since. This comes through in the filmmaking and the film doesn’t feel like it’s capitalizing on everyone else’s love of dogs. Some filmmakers try to pull off this sales trick, but not this time.
This will likely end up on my Top 10 of the year at the end of 2024. Of course, I am biased as a dog lover and usually fall for any dog movie, no matter what it is. (As long as it isn’t terrible…) However, there are only a few that standout as extraordinary cinema in addition to being wonderful dog lover movies. This is one of those and I am glad I had the chance to watch this on the big screen in Cannes this year. Peng even brought one of the actual black dogs from the film to the world premiere (photos here). Everyone who has ever loved a dog knows that dogs change lives. Capturing that kind of story on film is not as easy at it might seem when it can dip into becoming too campy or overly sentimental. Black Dog is a film that carefully captures subtle emotions, a love for life, and perseverance, to show how one dog can change an entire town. There is one beautiful scene that left me in tears at the end, though I imagine anyone who watches mind end up crying at any of the scenes in the film. Let’s continue to celebrate dogs and their magnificence on screen & off screen.
Alex’s Cannes 2024 Rating: 9.5 out of 10
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