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Gouzhen (2024)

Drama | 106 minutes
3,54 62 votes

Genre: Drama

Duration: 106 minuten

Alternative titles: Black Dog / Gou Zhen / 狗阵

Country: China

Directed by: Hu Guan

Stars: Eddie Peng, Jia Zhang-ke and Yi Zhang

IMDb score: 7,2 (5.273)

Releasedate: 15 June 2024

Gouzhen plot

On the edge of the Gobi Desert in northwest China, Lang returns to his parental village. He was just released from prison. In preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games that will take place in the country, street dogs are being banned from the town. Lang is part of the dog patrol that must ensure this task runs smoothly. He comes across a black dog with whom he builds a bond. Together these lonely souls embark on a new journey.

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avatar van Fisico

Fisico

  • 10039 messages
  • 5398 votes

A rather bleak film set in a remote Chinese town in the Ghobi Desert. Chinese modernity has not yet seeped in. The town is plagued by stray dogs and I suspect they even outnumber the people living there. The local zoo is just as sad as the rest.

The dog hunt did have something comical. On the one hand, they had to catch the dogs with care, but unfortunately not everyone adhered to that. The fact that he was famous for that helps a bit. A nice sad story against the background of the approaching Olympic Games in Beijing. The contrast could not be greater.

Character Lang returns to his region after a forced absence. This is not a happy one, because no one is waiting for him.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original

avatar van mrklm

mrklm

  • 11374 messages
  • 9897 votes

After serving six years in prison for manslaughter, Lang [Eddie Peng] returns to his former home in northwestern China. With six weeks to go until the Beijing Olympics, Lang can work as a dog catcher to catch the many stray dogs and prevent an outbreak of rabies. But Hu [Xiaoguang Hu] has not yet forgiven Lang for the death of his cousin and makes his life miserable in all sorts of ways. Lang ends his loneliness by taking in the black dog of the title. The interaction between Lang and the dog produces some remarkable moments, but the screenplay consists mainly of loose, insufficiently developed storylines that never come to fruition. With the help of cameraman Weizhe Gao, Hu manages to capture beautiful images.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original

avatar van De filosoof

De filosoof

  • 2449 messages
  • 1664 votes

Loads of books and films make use of the 'Byronic hero' and so does this film: the hero of the story is a wandering stranger with a dark background (here: a man who has just been released from prison and is inseparable from his motorbike), who barely speaks which increases his mystery, who gets into fights everywhere and is afraid of nothing and no one (here: he was wrongly imprisoned and is a good man but a fighter), who gets the necessary blows but eventually wins (here he has to fight off dog catchers and the family of the murdered boy) and who after his adventures leaves his admirers behind and sets off again as the unbound, mysterious loner that he is. Above all, he stands up against injustice, which in this film is embodied by a street dog suspected of rabies with a high price on his head who becomes his best friend: of course they both stand for the same thing, namely the supposedly dangerous pariahs who are in reality the heroes.

Now these clichés are not that bad, but as befits an arthouse film, there is no exciting revenge crescendo but the film meanders on without a climax or denouement: even when the village idiot releases the animals, including a tiger, from the zoo, nothing happens. The idea will be more abstract: the background of the Olympic Games represents how everything – man and animal – must make way for the projects of civilization, while the hero deserves all the sympathy because he gives the animals the respect they deserve in the face of this offensive against civilization and the oppression. But the fact that the plot of the story leads nowhere and that there are also elements in it – such as his past as a band member and his love for Pink Floyd – that cannot be meaningfully connected to the story, makes the film very mediocre.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original