Movie Review: Dog Bite Dog/狗咬狗

This 2006 Soi Cheang film is not for the squeamish.

It’s Category III and with good reason. Brutal, shocking, and unrelenting, it’s a movie you’re not likely to forget.

It’s the story of a Cambodian hitman who comes to Hong Kong to carry out a job and the policemen who are trying to catch him.

That doesn’t sound like it’s breaking new generic ground, but there’s a few things to consider about it.

One, the Cambodian is an illiterate, practically feral savage whose background is in unarmed fights to the death.

He’d rather kill than talk, and since no one in Hong Kong understands Cambodian, it’s pointless anyway.

So he just kills people.

Two, the maniac Cambodian hitman is played by Edison Chen.

This film came out before ‘Edisongate,’ when he was still considered an unblemished star and generally well-behaved pop idol.

Dog Bite Dog/狗咬狗 was definitely a change for Edison.

He doesn’t look Cambodian, but that’s not really important.

Luckily for him, it’s not a role where he has to do much talking.

He seemed to do okay with the few lines he did have in the movie, or maybe he was well-dubbed.

He also does a good job with the role overall, managing to be convincing as an unwashed, unhinged, third world urchin from Hell.

Playing opposite him is Sam Lee as a young policeman who is no angel either.

He is part of a team that includes Wayne Lai, Lam Suet and Eddie Cheung Siu Fai, all of whom turn in really good performances that are fairly unusual for them.

What I mean is that like Edison’s hitman, these people are all pretty rotten humans and almost impossible to like.

They all follow Edison’s character down a rabbit hole lined with broken glass that leads to Satan’s garbage disposal.

Soi Cheang creates a world so ugly, cruel and hopeless it could turn even the best people into monsters.

But like Andres Sorrano’s Piss Christ, this world has a certain putrid beauty to it.

It looks pretty even as you know it stinks to high heaven.

Luckily for us, Smell-O-Vision never really caught on.

I really liked the way the cinematography captured the story, and the characters, and the city. Some of the camera work reminded me of Wong Kar Wai’s Fallen Angels, one of the few films of his that I like.

I also really enjoyed how shocking the film could be, even while I was watching it a second time.

I didn’t enjoy the things that shocked me, but I enjoyed the idea that I could be shocked.

I like movies that defy my expectations, and Dog Bite Dog/狗咬狗  does it in a lot of ways.

Within this bludgeoning story of hatred and vengeance there are also stories about love, redemption, and family.

But even these are so deeply stuck into the mud, blood and shit of the world the story takes place in that you may find yourself re-thinking what things like devotion and loyalty mean.

Your confusion won’t really be helped by the end of the movie, which I admit was lost on me. I was frustrated by it because the entire rest of the film was so strong, and suddenly at the end, it just got… weird.

I felt it was more than slightly overstated, but to be fair EVERYTHING in this movie is overstated!

Dog Bite Dog/狗咬狗  isn’t easy to watch, but I think it’s at least thought-provoking, and that’s a pretty good thing.

It’s certainly entertaining, and it’s not a movie you’re likely to forget.

I moved to Hong Kong in 2005. 2006 doesn’t seem that long ago, but the taxis in this movie look old to me. And Lam Suet looks young!