Film:Our Neighbor [Jietou xiangwei 街頭巷尾] Director: Lee Hsing 李行 Performers: LEE Kuan-chang [Li Guanzhang 李冠章], LUO Wanlin 羅宛琳, You Juan 游娟, Lei Ming 雷鳴, unnamed dog (“Little Dog”) Breed featured: Terrier mix Production Information: Zili, 1963 (Taiwan)
In a poverty-stricken corner of urban Taiwan, a small group of Taiwanese and Mainland emigres form a community built upon “love between mother and daughter, between compatriots, and of a small orphaned girl, and the moving fraternal love of the poor masses.” The group learns how to coexist, overcome differences, and triumph despite trauma in this uplifting, sentimental story. Saccharine as it may be, this film is exactly what resonated with audiences of the time, and moved director Lee Hsing to center stage in the emergent Mandarin-language film circles in the Republic of China on Taiwan.
This director is important, but I won’t go into the details here; you’ll have to ask me in another context as to how he became a household name. What’s important for the purposes of this blog is that he went so far as to include a very special dog in the film that would serve to launch his grand career.
The dog doesn’t really have a name. They just address him generically as “little dog” (xiaogou), though he is treated as a treasured member of the community. In particular, he is present at moments of stress and consternation — which, for poor people, unfortunately happen often.
The physical interaction between humans and dog is fairly subtle, but I think it’s significant. The dog appears at moments that both reflect and amplify the anxieties of the human characters. We have no idea of where he came from, what his own story is. Then again, we don’t know that much about the humans’ backgrounds, either. We do know that every character has a function and a role in this community, contributive or extractive. The little dog, apparently, contributes by extracting anxiety — as a docile, obedient therapy animal, of sorts.
The fact that he doesn’t clearly contribute to the community makes him vulnerable, after all. It’s not like they need him for hunting or ratting or anything other than comforting his people at home. When Pearl, his owner and one of the central characters in this story, is in need of money, the only thing she has of value to pawn off is the little dog. And so she does, barely aware of what kind of future she may be condemning her formerly beloved pet. She knows the dog is inherently “worth” something… she just doesn’t necessarily understand why.
The adult viewer at the time, however, understands the gravity and peril of the situation all too well. Frankly, Little Dog has a greater chance of being resold as meat than as pet or even a “working” dog. Pearl has left the dog’s fate entirely up to chance, just like the public lottery tickets (also for resale) she bought with the money she got from selling her dog. This is the order of life in 1960s Taiwan. But while Pearl’s customers can scratch and just be out a bit of cash when they lose, Little Dog is in danger of losing his very life. That’s what makes the scene so devastating, even if the consequences are removed by several steps.
Nevertheless, it’s entirely to director Lee and his scriptwriter’s credit that they made sure to tie up loose ends and explain that yes, the dog was safely recovered after all. Who cares about the unlikely circumstances of his return — a neighbor happened to run into the anonymous dog-buyer and buy back the dog (at who knows what cost). I’m glad that director felt that Little Dog was important enough to include a resolution, since he could easily have just dropped him from the storyline as so often happens to film dogs… Lee, however, had a sense that the dog would matter to audiences, as he must have mattered to him.
For every potential dogeater in the audience, there was at least one who would find such practices gruesome and abhorrent. Lee took sides with the latter.
I first saw this pre dogblog days. Recently revisited, I was impressed by how much one could get out of just focusing on the dog. So very interesting to see concern for the canine given equal status as the urban underclass, the female, the ethnic minority, and other vulnerable groups — even as early as 1963, in postwar Taiwan, where one might assume that so many other things would matter more.
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The House of Two Bows keeps a running index of movies blurbed on the site, annotated by breed. If you’re interested in writing a guest blog for a dog film, contact for details.
Film:Legend of the T-Dog [Mingyun gou bu li 命運狗不理] Director: Li Tian-chueh 李天爵 Performers: Wang Po-chieh 王柏傑, Lin Ruoya 霖若亞, Blackberry 黑莓 (T-Dog) Animal trainer: Chen Ying-jie 陳英傑 Breed featured: Taiwan tugou, Formosan Mountain Dog, Golden Retriever (brief), French Bulldog (brief) Production information: Dilu Quan 的盧犬, 2012 (Taiwan)
Ah Dou is an aid at a hospital where several people are rushed in for bizarre, life-threatening emergencies. Each time, there is a mysterious black dog chasing the ambulance — the titular T-dog, named such because he bears a distinctive gold T emblazoned across his forehead, and also probably because is a classic Taiwan tugou.
As it turns out, the T-Dog is a modern day incarnation of an inauspicious “hellhorse” from ancient times. Anyone who assumes dominion over this creature enjoys short term success, but then inevitably befalls calamity upon the 49th day.
This is not a horror film, and for all its absurdity, it’s not quite comedy. Rather, it’s what new director Li Tian-chueh has characterized as some kind of avant-gardist science fantasy, in the Chinese literary tradition of zhiguai, “records of the strange,” with a decidedly contemporary, Taiwanese twist.
Folk religion, often pejoratively labeled “superstition,” is quite integrated into modern everyday practice in Taiwan. This is played out in the actions of Ah Dou, who cultivates a warm, altruistic personality to stave off the misfortune which has plagued his family for generations. Ah Dou’s concern for his ragtag, downtrodden neighbors manifests as a cheerful obsession. For as much good as he tries to do for others, Ah Dou often gets in trouble because he can’t keep his own act together.
One day, when Ah Dou is down on his luck, he witnesses the T-Dog struggling with a dog catcher, and decides to intervene. Against the admonitions of his colleagues, he takes the dog home and names him “Happy” (a pun on ‘black coat,’ heipi 黑皮) to signal the new directions he intends to pursue.
For a while, the canine charm seems to work. The kindness he showed to his neighbors is repaid when they set him up with an apartment after an unexpected eviction. He finds comfort and learns to make his home anew by living with a cool dog. After being fired from his hospital job, he even manages to get with Dr. Lai, the beautiful head doctor from his old ward.
Ah Dou’s allegiances and beliefs are put to one final test. A stranger contacts him, offering him a rare postage stamp to finish a set that Ah Dou has been trying to collect. His father died clinging to the belief that this complete postage set will break the family curse, so Ah Dou continued the search out of filial duty. However, the stranger wants to exchange the stamp for the T-Dog.
An interesting proposition. It seems like a clear decision to exchange the unlucky dog for a clean slate. However, in part because of his girlfriend’s urging, Ah Dou decides that he must commit to protect his “family members” in the present, no matter how his past may have determined is fate. With that, he passes the test and the curse is lifted… as it turns out the stranger is another incarnation of an ancient eccentric that Ah Dou had wronged in a previous life. That relationship had been the basis of the multi-generational curse all along, not the possession or lack or any lucky talismans.
As I was working through this summary, I realized how this film’s premise is really quite charming, but unfortunately, much of its potential was lost in execution. For the very first drama to feature a Taiwan dog as a lead character, I had high hopes. Blackberry 黑莓, the tugou recruited for the part, was actually scouted from her prominent cameo in the 2011 blockbuster Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (on the list to be blogged).
However, Legend of the T-Dog was filmed under very different conditions. According to the ‘making of’ video above, there was definitely an acclimatization and socialization process to get Blackberry accustomed to working with her costars. Taiwan dogs make for recalcitrant movie stars, as they don’t easily open up to strangers and can be nervous and flighty on a busy set.
Blackberry, fortunately, was very food-motivated.
She was also extraordinarily tolerant of ridiculous costuming and lots of (wo)manhandling!
It is much to Blackberry’s credit that she performed and was filmed so well, despite the movie’s faults! That said, she’s also indicative of how poorly the characters were constructed. Sure, she was probably the most “experienced” Taiwan dog actor for the part, but if they were going to go through the trouble of dyeing additional markings on her, I don’t know why they didn’t just go ahead and give her four white paws and a white streak across her chest, to tap into the superstitions that continue to be deeply ingrained in the Taiwanese popular imagination of “unlucky” dogs.
My aunt’s Taiwan dog, Nyo-nyo
I also don’t know what’s up with Ah Dou’s goofy-looking mustache, the panoply of fantasy cultists who stand in as exaggerated quirks of local folk religion, and the obnoxious nurses whom Ah Dou works with at the hospital. Ah Dou himself is fairly nondescript as a generic “good guy” character, whom you end up rooting for only because everyone else is so utterly annoying. I would really have liked to see more examples of his developing relationship with the dog, rather than the doctor, to add some depth to both human and canine characters.
Legend of the T-Dog was a valiant attempt to experiment with dog movie conventions, moving beyond the typical tropes of cuddly, infantilized, domesticated creatures, and trying to invest the dog with some kind of historical or cultural significance. All the elements failed to alchemize in the end, leaving the audience with a little bit of black gold… and a whole lot of lead.
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The House of Two Bows keeps a running index of movies blurbed on the site, annotated by breed. If you’re interested in writing a guest blog for a dog film, contact for details.
Film:Twelve Nights [Shier ye 十二夜] Director: Raye Producer: Giddens Ko 九把刀, Sophia Sui 隋棠 Cinematographer: ZHOU Yi-hsien 周宜賢 Performers: Dogs at an unnamed shelter in Taiwan Breeds featured: Taiwan dogs, Shiba Inu, German Shepherd, Basset Hound Production information: Atom Cinema, 2013 (Taiwan) Availability: A region-free DVD and CD soundtrack can be purchased through Yesasia.com [Ed. 7.14.2014]
Twelve Nights, a documentary about dogs in a Taiwan animal shelter, hit the theatrical circuits this Friday, November 29th. I had a chance to see it premier at a sold-out screening in the midst of the Golden Horse Film Festival.
Here’s an early preview that I shared via Facebook:
A rough translation of the overhead narration (which is not present in the film): What if you only had twelve days remaining? How would you like to pass your time?
[Intertitle: What is the happiest time of your life?]
Just quietly enjoy some time with your family? Eat a meal of your favorite food? Join your friends at the beach and chase the breaking waves? Shelter your children one last time? Sit together, and watch one last sunset? Or… would you want more time?
[Intertitle: A lifetime’s journey, counting down in 12 days]
[Intertitle: Production credits (listed above)]
—
Everyone was handed a pack of tissues as they entered the theater (though some of us had come prepared anyway). “You’ve all got your tissues? You know what to do,” said director Raye somberly as she briefly introduced the film.
Who are the emotional masochists who choose to purchase a movie ticket, enter the theater, and purposely watch a film that they know is going to bring them to anguish and tears? I didn’t get a chance to survey the audience, but I noted that it was comprised of a mix of male and female (possibly leaning more towards women), mostly audience members aged forty or younger.
The film came together through the efforts of a young group of animal lovers. Raye, a commercial film editor who initiated the project, began taking her own footage, but had a hard time finding financial support. It wasn’t until she came upon a willing cinematographer, Zhou Yi-hsien (周宜賢), that producer Giddens Ko (九把刀 a.k.a. “Nine Knives,” a prolific writer and sometimes film director) entered with the necessary backing. After the screening, Ko noted, “I used to say that the most valuable thing I’ve ever purchased was dreams. But now I think the most valuable thing I can purchase is hope.” The driving motive of the film, according to Ko, is not to depress everyone about the monstrosity of the situation, but to inspire change.
Left to right: ZHOU Yi-hsien, cinematographer; Giddens Ko, producer; EMT friend, a volunteer; Raye, director
Indeed, the film is radically different from any previous documentaries I’ve watched which address the topic of homeless Taiwan dogs. Twelve Nights looks and sounds like it should screen alongside mainstream, commercial features with high production values, though I suspect the actual budget was relatively low. There were no “actors” to pay, after all. Most of the crew is comprised of volunteers, and all of the proceeds are going to animal welfare charities anyway.
It’s a film that holds together with a desperation and sincerity befitting the gravity of the topic. They desperately want people to come and watch this film, not for their sake, but for the animals. And as art is motivated not by profit motives, but by a resolve to understand and transcend time and space, Twelve Nights is so much more than that fatal deadline indicated in the title, or the duration of entrapment in this “shelter” that is more accurately described as a death-row prison. Rather, the aesthetic choices delicately balance hope and devastation, inevitably tipping one way or the other at times, but doing so with grace and sensitivity. How do you convince people to actually purchase a movie ticket and sit through such a painful film, after all? And once there, how can you justify making them stay? Why do you want to expose them to animal suffering and cruelty, and the visage of real death? Must we see these things to know that they exist?
I think there are many valid ethical questions when subjecting audiences to screen violence of any kind. Let me try to explain how the film navigates these issues through its three outstanding features – cinematography, narration, and music.
1) Cinematography
As should be evident from the preview, the quality of the visuals is gorgeous. Alarmingly so. Natural winter lighting contrasts the torture of captivity by casting so many brutal details in a warm, golden glow. Yet, this is not to say that the documentary devalues the gravity of the situation by beautifying it. There is so much shit, piss, blood, vomit, and other discharges from the very first day that it should be clear that the filmmakers are not trying to sanitize the issues at all.
Day one begins with intake. We watch a group of newly collected dogs get dragged out of their cages and marched into their kennels at the end of catchpoles, fighting and defecating themselves every step of the way. All of them resist in some way, no matter what their condition — old, young, barely weaned, mangy, fit, injured, pregnant, limping. There is even a Shiba Inu, nicknamed “Little Japan,” who arrives relatively groomed and sporting a new-looking collar. She, like every single dog scanned that day, is not microchipped. And one by one, you see terror and confusion cloud over their eyes when they’re finally moved into their kennel.
This is the important thing though… You see their eyes. You see their faces and their whole, expressive bodies. When photographing dogs, this is such an essential rule, but so often the cinematography must make compromises to withdraw back to human-centric narration. Not here. Even when the dogs burrow underneath the raised kennel platforms to hide and cower, the camera tracks and follows, maintaining canine eye levels. When you see the concrete floor slick with excreta by the end of the intake session, the thought of sharing that stooped view with the dogs becomes nauseating. Yet this is the only way to emulate canine perspective, and begin to understand the conditions in which they live and die (though the limitations of the medium can’t transmit the primary way dogs perceive — through olfaction). In the entire documentary, you barely see any human faces, you barely even hear the shelter workers’ voices. Locked in on animal visages, the cinematographer was able to elicit more personality and more charisma from every single one of these documentary subjects than some purportedly dog-centric films starring trained animal actors.
2) Narration
Despite what is suggested in the preview, there is no overhead narration. No extra-diegetic, God-voices at all, dictating how we should feel and think. This was a very conscientious decision on the part of the filmmakers, who wanted to decrease the level of anthropomorphism, while acknowledging that we can’t fully escape the anthropomorphic impulse to narrate in our effort to make sense of the very reason for this documentary’s existence.
Humans want to tell, and to hear stories. It’s clear that the dogs possess emotions that hint at many of their own stories, but how do they want to be narrated? This is what the skillful cinematography allows us to contemplate, and it is also what the textual intertitles nudge us to see with clarity. A few dozen dogs are given code names, which confer personality — not to excess. Anyone who spends time observing dogs, whether twelve days or twelve years, knows that personality will naturally manifest. And with the evidence of personality, or what is being debated as “personhood” in some circles, comes the moral responsibility to acknowledge that terminating a life means silencing the stories that came to shape that creature’s personality.
This, I think, is the most heartbreaking aspect of the narration for me — knowing that all these dogs had a past, one that probably was intertwined with humans. So even Twelve Nights cannot avoid sloganeering, but I find their mantra of Adopt, don’t abandon 領養, 不棄養 to be less antagonistic as the American counterpart, “Don’t breed or buy while shelter pets die.” Animal welfare agendas in Taiwan similarly aim to shape pet owner behavior, but not necessarily on the level of reproductive control. I admit, I twitched reflexively when I saw that dogs from this shelter were adopted out without spaying or neutering. Upon reflection, such details remind me that this documentary is about trying to rearrange value systems, and even empathetic “insiders” are not immune to having their beliefs questioned. On the whole, I feel that the narration eschewed dogma, judgment, and sensationalism. Yet, “facts” are ever neutral, and always gesture towards context.
For example, we are told right at the outset that of the 400 ~ 450 dogs witnessed over the course of the filming, at least 53 of them did indeed make it out of the shelter. For the rest, the film serves as the last remaining record of their existence. What these numbers signify to the viewer is instantly so much more than mere numbers. They are reminders of hope, as well as a way to prepare the viewer for the heartache that follows.
This heartache is meant to produce its own agenda. The filmmakers want their audience to react strongly enough to desire change. But they’re also trying to let you know at the outset that the something positive is in view. In the post-screening Q&A, Giddens Ko shared a particularly touching anecdote. He spoke of how they’d already resolved to rescue as many dogs as they could, abandoning the impossible notion of maintaining “objectivity.” Yet, he was trying to steel himself against the emotional outpouring that he knew would hit. At least, he didn’t want it to happen in front of the camera.
On the day the film crew was to witness a round of mass euthanasia, Ko was completely prepared to turn off his emotions. He happened to look over at one of their volunteers, an EMT who regularly visited the shelter and became a part of their documentary efforts. His friend, built like a “homicidal maniac” (in Ko’s words), literally the appearance of a man of steel on the outside, displayed absolutely no resistance to the circumstances. He let himself cry freely, openly, and with great sympathy. Here was a bulk of a man who has to confront the brink of life and death, both in his career and by choice through his volunteer efforts at the shelter, and yet he had no inhibitions about expressing his feelings for these animals.
The “homicidal maniac” speaks.
In short, the stake of these dogs is more important than your hangups about whether or not you should cry in front of others. This is something that the director wanted to remind potential audience members who say they want to watch the movie, but don’t want to be seen crying in front of their friends, or strangers. We legitimize these issues by allowing them to seep into public, and emboldening ourselves to appear vulnerable to others.
3) Music
Briefly, I want to acknowledge the score provided by Owen Wang 王希文, a talented young composer whose name has quickly risen among the ranks of Taiwan film. The soundtrack is intimate and minimalistic, consisting mostly of sparse piano, acoustic guitar, and chamber orchestration, complementing the cinematography with a similar elegance. Most importantly to me, there are no “theme songs” to speak of, where some maudlin lyrics penned for a pop star destroy the mood by closing out with some gross overtures of marketable sentiment. Many a Japanese dog movie is guilty of setting such booby traps in the end credits, and also too many other animal welfare documentaries than I care to list…
While the soundtrack to Twelve Nights is memorable, it does not overtake the voices of the dogs themselves, which is constant in a noisy kennel environment. Director Raye knows to employ music, silence, and noise judiciously. You do have to hear the voices of the dogs at times, but the audience is spared the sensation of hearing them all the time. Music is offered as an important psychological retreat. When a film is as heavy as Twelve Nights, it is not at all a bad idea to create as many ventilation points as possible, so as not to suffocate the viewer before they make it to the end.
So I heartily approve of this film’s inclusion in the Golden Horse festival lineup, and completely respect anyone who has the heart to purchase a movie ticket and see it during its theatrical exhibition. At this point, I do not know of screening prospects outside of Taiwan. If a DVD becomes available later, I’ll update with information.
The House of Two Bows keeps a running index of movies blurbed on the site, annotated by breed. If you’re interested in writing a guest blog for a dog film, contact for details.
Film:Snow Prince: Forbidden Love Melody [Sunō Purinsu: Kinjirareta koi no merodii スノープリンス 禁じられた恋のメロディ] Director: MATSUOKA Joji 松岡 錠司 Performers: MORIMOTO Shintaro 森本 慎太郎, KUWASHIMA Marino 桑島 真理乃, TADANOBU Asano 浅野 忠信, Chibi チビ (Patrasche the dog, now Chibi the Akita) Breed featured: Japanese Akita, Miniature Poodles (brief) Dog Trainer: MIYA Tadaomi 宮 忠臣 Assistant Dog Trainer: SUGAWARA Takashi(?) 菅原 孝 Production: Shochiku, 2009 (Japan)
This Japanese version of A Dog of Flanders riffs off a British “puppy love” film called Melody (1971) by shifting the emphasis onto two childhood friends, Sota and Sayo, basically crowding Chibi the Japanese Akita out of the story. SPOILER, Notably, this filmic version was bold enough to follow the original story to its tragic end. / spoiler. That’s about the most I can say in its favor, as the film did very little to convey the essential relationships — boy+grandfather, boy+dog, boy+girl, children+dog, etc. — in anything but the most superficial terms.
It’s always disappointing when a movie features a “rare” breed dog, and then fails to render it with full personality. It’s especially egregious when the dog is supposed to play a much more central role, even featuring in the title of the (original) story! Ironically, a couple dramatic incidents hinge on the boy totally ignoring his dog’s warnings, thus imperiling himself and his friends. Cheap thrills to amp up otherwise muted performances.
Not that the Akita was the most, uhm, engaged actor, either.
Chibi the Akita was directed by Miya Tadaomi, the same dog trainer who handled Mari, Ururu, and just about every other Japanese dog film to come out in recent years. The mismatched eyelines and expressionless canine faces are about par for the course here, but the editing and camera work was especially deficient. Sometimes you can guess from the camera work whether or not a cinematographer actually understands canine body language. An inexperienced photographer will focus on the dog’s face to convey feeling in human, speech-centric terms.
However, dogs communicate using their whole body, head to tail, and they do so most effectively when there is an actual target of communication. That is, mutual interaction with other people, other dogs, and any other creatures, does the most to render animal personality in legible terms. Yet, the actors in Snow Prince seemed resistant to actually touching the dog.
The effect is to diminish the vivacity of the dog, in my opinion. I guess it’s “realistic” in the sense that the boy and his dog are supposed to be half-frozen and starving, but still! What a waste of a gorgeous, fluffy Akita that everyone should be tempted to pet and manhandle.
Asano Tadanobu has a minor, but pivotal role as a circus clown. I appreciate the touch of absurdity he brings to otherwise rote performances, even if his talents are wasted here.
Major squickiness also comes from the concept of “puppy love” and the discomfort of knowing that I’m supposed to be rooting for the ill-fated romance between Sota the pauper and Sayo the rich schoolgirl, but there is no good reason to do so. I know we’re supposed to think they’re so innocent and pure and asexual and blah blah blah, but I’m too cynical. I have no belief in innocent love, just ignorant love. Besides, kids that age are already capable of being really mean to each other, as the other schoolkids demonstrate.
But I’m curious as to what happens when we think of “puppy love” not as an anthropomorphism, but a cynomorphism. What we mean by the term is a fleeting, but intense attachment to another. It’s like when [some] puppies will orient themselves entirely towards their One Person, chosen primarily on the basis of proximity: Oh hey, you’re RIGHT THERE and I LOVE YOU.
Puppies are biologically wired to be people-oriented because they’re helpless and they literally might not live without you. Sorry, that’s not love. That’s sheer survival instinct kicking in when a baby has been violently wrest from its den, and it’s silly to conflate the situations. Don’t forget after all that the children found Chibi, abandoned as a puppy, because his mother had been flogged and worked to death.
Yeah, things were never innocent to begin with.
Anyway, if you have the ability to disengage the part of your brain that processes reality, maybe you’ll enjoy this film. But you’re going to have to identify with something other than the dog… or any of the main characters, because there’s just not much there.
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The House of Two Bows keeps a running index of movies blurbed on the site, annotated by breed. If you’re interested in writing a guest blog for a dog film, contact for details.
Film:Cujo Director: Lewis Teague Performers: Dee Wallace, Danny Pintauro, Daniel Hugh-Kelly, Ed Lauter, unnamed Saint Bernards and Rottweilers (as Cujo) Breed featured: Saint Bernard Animal trainer: Karl Lewis Miller (credited for animal action); Glen Garner, Jackie Martin (credited as animal handlers) Production information: Warner Brothers, 1983 (USA)
Stephen King’s Cujo is synonymous with the killer dog raging out of control. If you don’t know the story, the name may or may not bring to mind a Saint Bernard (gee, I wonder if the movie spurred an uptick in demand for this breed?). It may or may not even call to mind rabies, the disease that is transmitted to the titular dog, causing him to stalk and kill both his familiars and hapless passers-through. In popular parlance, to “go Cujo” just means to turn violent with little to no basis for aggression; provocation or other, explanatory factors are not necessarily part of the definition.
kids, this is NOT how you greet a strange dog — rabid or not
Cujo embodies the basic fear that no matter how “tame” you may consider your cohabitants — your pets, your spouse, your child(ren) — there is always a possibility that they will turn on you. Yet, it’s not nearly so frightening when betrayal comes in the form of a cheating or abusive partner, a side plot to the central conflict. When the creature that turns is a 200-pound dog who is physically unstoppable, can’t listen to either emotion or reason, and could easily tear out your throat and suck the juices from your face without bothering to wipe off any of the mess… well, that’s the stuff of nightmares.
Really gross, drippy, and OMGdontevenTOUCHmejuststayAWAY nightmares.
As I jot down this review, I am thinking of Taiwan, currently in the grips of rabies hysteria. In June 2013, a number of ferret-badgers from the landlocked county of Nantou in central Taiwan tested positive for the rabies virus. These discoveries effectively struck the island from the list of international rabies-free zones, a status it has enjoyed for over 50 years. The news was made official in mid-July. To date, there have been 36 confirmed cases, though none involve pets or any of the large population of free-roaming cats and dogs.
Ideally, the disease will be contained as vaccines are properly administered — when they’re available. There’s been a shortage of supplies, and quite a bit of dramatics involved. Historically, cross-culturally, and even aesthetically, this seems to be the nature of the disease. Visual and literary depictions of rabies frequently run to extremes, as if born of anxieties that the madness is transmissible by more than bites, but by thought itself.
What seems most frightening about rabies is how it possesses and transforms the very nature of the individual, the closest thing to mammalian metamorphoses documented by humans. Even the cleanest household beast will turn into a drooling, staggering mess if infected — and by then, it’s a goner. In the case of pets, it’s frightening to think that a constant companion, whose presence is frequently invited and a welcome part of daily life, has even the slightest potential to become the vector of violence and trauma. Indeed, pets only became as widespread and as precious as they are now when the threat of an untimely loss due to rabies (and other common diseases like distemper) was effectively nullified by modern vaccines.
Of course, there would be no story if Cujo’s owner had just properly vaccinated him like a responsible, modern pet owner. Indeed, the world has moved on from the days of Old Yeller, where a farm dog chasing wild rabbits on his turf was only so much charming, innocent fun. Now, you gotta add rabid bats and other, unforeseen dangers to the environment. Cujo (and his owner) are essentially punished for being relics of backwoods ignorance that no longer have their place. But in a story like Old Yeller, where no humans are actually hurt by rabid animals, the pain is more psychological. In this story, where the dog’s original owner is quickly dispatched, and the main victims are a mother and son who just happen to get stuck on Cujo’s farm, the threat is mostly about physical rather than emotional harm.
That is, if they could just kill the damn dog and get to a phone, there’d be no lingering regrets about losing a formerly-loved friend. And honestly, by the end of the movie, I was kind of wishing they could just be done with it though I knew there was only one way out. The rabid dog never wins. He just can’t.
But cripes, at least they can give him a proper bath when the shooting’s over!
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The House of Two Bows keeps a running index of movies blurbed on the site, annotated by breed. If you’re interested in writing a guest blog for a dog film, contact for details.
Film:First Blood (Rambo) Director: Ted Ketchoff Performers: Sylvester Stallone, Brian Dennehy, Richard Crenna, John McLiam, unknown dogs Breed featured: Doberman Pinscher Production information: Anabasis N.V. / Eljaco, 1982 (USA)
In the first installment of the Rambo franchise, a local tracker, “Orval the dog man” and his pack of Dobermans are enlisted to help the small-town police force flush John Rambo out of the woods. The old man is only too eager to lead this chase.
The dogs are supposed to be the ultimate weapon, more powerful than the entire police force combined. Of course, this isn’t saying much…
And this is before the cops learn that the “drifter” they’ve been antagonizing is actually a highly trained Green Beret and a veteran of the Vietnam War.
Needless to say, the dogs didn’t stand a chance against Rambo.
No on-screen violence towards dogs is actually depicted (we do hear them yelp and fall silent), so I would suggest that the dogs are just knocked unconscious. Internet consensus does not agree with me. However, killing the dogs doesn’t seem to fit with Rambo’s character in this particular storyline. While Rambo eventually becomes synonymous with a kind of macho, imperialistic, American brand of violence, he is very carefully portrayed in First Blood as maintaining a certain amount of restraint and even moral deliberation. He could have killed any one of his pursuers, but he doesn’t; he just hurts them very badly, enough to make them remember who they’re dealing with.
The dogs, however, would never be able to process the connection. Does it makes sense for Rambo’s character to kill the dogs because he isn’t able to offer them a fair alternative? Or is it precisely because of their animality that he dispatches them so quickly — so that they would no longer suffer the fate of being misused and mistreated, just like him?
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The House of Two Bows keeps a running index of movies blurbed on the site, annotated by breed. If you’re interested in writing a guest blog for a dog film, contact for details.
Film:Clash of the Titans Director: Desmond Davis Animator: Ray Harryhausen Performers: Harry Hamlin, Laurence Olivier, Neil McCarthy, Judi Bowker, Maggie Smith, Burgess Meredith Dog featured: Dioskilos, the two-headed dog Production information: MGM, 1981 (US/UK)
Thus far in 2013, the celebrity death that most shook my world was that of stop motion animation pioneer, Ray Harryhausen. He passed away on May 7, 2013 at the venerable age of 92.
Bowdu is pictured above with my Italian movie poster for Harryhausen’s Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958), the first iteration of his famous “skeleton fight” sequences. His artistry compelled me to sit through many a hackneyed romance (like the entire Sinbad franchise) knowing his monsters would be summoned to terrorize the mortals — delayed gratification, frame by precious frame.
Clash of the Titans was frequently on television when I was growing up. There was something impossibly alluring about that mythological world, where the animated creatures were more often sinister than friendly — Bubo the Owl and Pegasus were exceptional in his mostly monstrous pantheon. Yet the monsters’ perspectives often seemed more multidimensional to me. In this particular title for example, Medusa and Calibos seemed to possess stronger personalities and more complex back stories than the hero, Perseus, and his impeccably primped princess, Andromeda.
As I was thinking back on Harryhausen’s monsters and which would be bloggable here, the two-headed dog at Medusa’s temple ruins came to mind. He was not three-headed, and not to be mistaken for Cerberus the guardian of Hades. Harryhausen claimed that three heads was too “awkward” to animate.
Not that the two-headed dog was exactly seamless… but that’s half the charm of Harryhausen’s stop motion animation. The completion of his fantasy world is left, in part, to the viewer’s willingness to adore his creations as the product of human labor. This is not to deny that computer animation also involves intensive work and skill. I just think that tactility and malleability lends a gravity to the creatures that is sometimes missing from animations not based on physical models.
Anyway, as I was sorting through the DVD extras in preparation for this post, I learned that the two-headed dog actually has a name — Dioskilos.
If Dioskilos has a back story (Medusa’s pet?), we are not privy to it, as he is slain by Perseus and his men after a fairly brief battle.
In this version of the myth, we are told that Calibos, the arrogant son of Thetis, is punished with physical deformity for his avarice and disregard for life. He overhunts the land, driving even winged horses like Pegasus to extinction. Yet, it always struck me as hypocritical that the “heroes” seemed guilty of similar charges. Dioskilos, Medusa, and the Kraken were such unique, singular beasts, all killed off in the name of “good” — which ultimately boiled down to noble Perseus getting to bed his princess Andromeda, because Zeus wanted it that way.
Well, like Ray Harryhausen said, “Every legend has to be modified.”
Clash of the Titans was Harryhausen’s final feature. His monsters were perfectly tailored to complement audience imagination, and he retired at an appropriate time to preserve his legends for all they were worth.
A clip of the fight between Perseus’ men and Dioskilos is available on Turner Classic Movies.
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The House of Two Bows keeps a running index of movies blurbed on the site, annotated by breed. If you’re interested in writing a guest blog for a dog film, contact for details.
The House of Two Bows is truly honored to feature this guest post from a canine star and horror aficionado, Anubis the Barkless Dog. Anubis first caught our attention with a short video circulating on dog lists and forums, entitled Paranormal Activity. True to her Basenji nature, this petite pup packs some potent star power. Anubis is currently cultivating her acting and modeling profile, built upon an extensive background in the study of canine horror stars.
Without further ado, I hand today’s post over to Anubis.
Anubis, the Barkless Dog (photo courtesy of Anubis’ mum)
Many filmmakers are huge dog fans (my mummy is certainly one of them), but few have showcased their love the way Tim Burton has over the course of his extraordinary career. His first live-action short film, Frankenweenie (1984), recently remade into an animated feature (2012), is the most remarkable example of Burton’s passion for us dogs, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg.
“That sort of unconditional love that only dogs can give, people can’t do that,” Burton said in an interview; “but yes, that sort of thing where it’s very powerful, it’s kind of your first love and your first real relationship.”
Here is my homage to five of Tim Burton’s most fantastic canine heroes.
5. Scraps, The Corpse Bride (2005)
Kickstarting the countdown is part of a popular Burton sub-genre: the undead dog. Scraps is the childhood pet of Victor, the hero of the film, and is reunited with him when Victor visits the underworld. It’s a lovely scene, and a recurring theme in Burton’s work…
“I had this strong connection with a mutt we had named Pepe,” Burton once explained, “and it was a good connection. The dog was not meant to live very long because of a disease he had, but he ended up living quite a long time. So you have this strong connection, and then you think: ‘Well, how long is this going to last?’ You don’t really understand those concepts of death at the time.”
4. Poppy, Mars Attacks! (1996)
Not only did Poppy play the part of the Chihuahua whose body is switched with his owner’s during horrifying alien experiments in Mars Attacks!, he was also Tim Burton and then-partner Lisa Marie’s real life doggie. He put in a strong dramatic performance despite his lack of formal training.
Besides his film work, Poppy served as a model for numerous photos and drawings by Burton, who also often posed with him in interviews. You’ve got to admire his patience. I would have chewed these antlers right off.
3. Abercrombie, Vincent (1982)
In Burton’s first short film Vincent, Abercrombie is the titular character’s partner-in-crime. Little is known about him, but his look is really cool, and these wonderful verses are about him:
He likes to experiment on his dog Abercrombie
In the hopes of creating a horrible zombie
So he and his horrible zombie dog
Could go searching for victims in the London fog
2. Zero, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Zero the ghost dog belongs to Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King. Though his home is a kennel grave in the cemetery, Zero is inseparable from his owner, who uses his own ribs to play fetch with him…
1. Sparky, Frankenweenie (1984; 2012)
Sparky is brought back to life by his young owner Victor after being run over by a car.
Although played by a bull terrier in the original short film, Sparky is meant to be a mutt, and to represent the very essence of a dog: loving, innocent, and utterly loveable. In both films, Victor and Sparky make little films together, like my mummy and I.
The animated version is adorable, but I have a soft spot for the original Sparky, who did really well with a challenging and emotional part.
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Screencaps and promotional photos courtesy of Anubis’ mummy. Extra screencaps for Frankenweenie supplied by the House of Two Bows.
Thanks again to Anubis (and mom) for sharing their knowledge. Look for more Anubis on a screen near you…
The House of Two Bows keeps a running index of movies blurbed on the site, annotated by breed. If you’re interested in writing a guest blog for a dog film, contact for details.
Film:National Velvet Director: Clarence Brown Performers: Liz Taylor, Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp, Ann Revere, King Charles (The Pie), Jacob the dog (unknown) Breed featured: Terrier mix Production information: MGM, 1944 (USA)
Yes, yes, National Velvet is known as a classic girls-meets-horse story… but let us not forget about Jacob, the scene-stealing dog. Described as a fox terrier in the book, Jacob is some kind of terrier medley in the film, sporting a shaggy coat and what appears to be a slightly misaligned bite.
This minor detail does not prevent him from being a very successful mooch at the dinner table.
Not only is Jacob the dog a central member of the Brown family, there really wouldn’t have been a story without his presence. Though The Pie, the horse, was known to escape at will, it took a confrontation between Jacob and the horse to set things in motion. Jacob acted on his animal instinct and charged after the horse, causing him to leap over his walled pasture and wreak havoc in town — the last straw for his previous owner. If Jacob hadn’t chased the Pie that day, Velvet Brown may never have had the opportunity to obtain the horse for herself.
Mostly, I liked how Jacob was as much a part of the family as any of the children — faults and rowdy impulses and all.
Indeed, National Velvet is as much about discipline (or lack thereof) as it is about raw instinct. Nobody ever actually gets punished in the story, especially not when acting in accordance with their inner nature. Even when there seems reason to correct flagrant “misbehavior,” all actions eventually serve a noble purpose — even if just to reveal something more about a character’s integrity.
It’s wholesomeness that even a dog can possess.
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The House of Two Bows keeps a running index of movies blurbed on the site, annotated by breed. If you’re interested in writing a guest blog for a dog film, contact for details.
Film:The Dog Murder [Quan sha 犬杀] Director: PENG Xiaolian 彭小莲 Performers: SONG Ruhui 宋茹惠, LI Xiaojia 李晓佳, ZHANG Qide 张启德, GAO Shuguang 高曙光, Laifu the dog Breed featured: German Shepherd Production information: Shanghai Film Company, 1996 (China)
Xu Lin, a famous stage director, lives in a palatial mansion in Shanghai’s French Concession with his surly wife. The only thing that seems to liven his days is his long-haired German Shepherd, Laifu. So it is most unusual when one evening, the household pet and loyal guardian turns on him, tearing out his throat and killing him. Female cop Teng Li is called in to tie together the loose ends when it is revealed that the dog was only acting under human command — that of the real killer.
File this under so crappy, it’s boring. No one is ever going to do anything with this film other than scoff at it… Nevertheless, the giant plot holes and factual absurdities reveal some common misconceptions about dogs. At the outset, Laifu’s vicious behavior is attributed to a case of rabies, so it’s a big deal that he’s at large in the city. There’s a lengthy chase scene in which Laifu is pursued through some Shanghai back alleys. Though he is not caught, these claustrophobic urban mazes provide an interesting spatial contrast to the Arcadian grounds whence he escaped.
In another scene, the female cop questions a professional dog trainer about Laifu’s behavior. “A dog turning on its own master? That’s the first I’ve ever heard of such a thing,” claims the expert. The scenario is supposed to be even more impossible because the dog in question is a purebred German Shepherd, known for its absolute devotion and obedience.
So obviously, some outside factor was involved, which completely absolves the dog of blame. I was struck by this fairly generous assessment, given that Chinese dogs are often euthanized en masse given even the mere suspicion of rabies.
So the real reason for Laifu’s fatal attack?
The answer: Nazis.
Yeah, they went there.
As it turns out, the killer was motivated by reading about a temporary insanity serum that the Nazis supposedly created to make dogs (and by extension, humans) lash out with intense violence for a brief period of time. By coincidence, this technique mirrors a fantastic idea proposed by a Taiwanese businessman and would-be lover of the dead man’s widow, who briefly comes under scrutiny early on in the cop’s investigation because he presents himself as claiming to know how to handle dogs. However, this Taiwanese businessman’s knowledge was also derived from another fictional world — Jin Yong’s martial arts novels.
The identity of the real killer doesn’t matter in the end, nor why the crime was committed. I got tired of the movie after they completely dropped the premise promised in the title.
We’re basically reassured that Laifu returns to the safe haven of the affluent household that raised him, and that justice prevails. If nothing else is stable in post-Socialist China, at least you can count on the integrity of law and order.
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The House of Two Bows keeps a running index of movies blurbed on the site, annotated by breed. If you’re interested in writing a guest blog for a dog film, contact for details.
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