Barking Dogs Never Bite

2000 [KOREAN]

Action / Comedy / Drama

26
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 76% · 17 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 76% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 6.9/10 10 11823 11.8K

dog apartment complex lost dog

Plot summary

An idle part-time college lecturer is annoyed by the yapping sound of a nearby dog. He decides to take drastic action.

Director

Joon-ho Bong Photo
Joon-ho Bong

Top cast

Doona Bae Photo
Doona Bae as Hyeon-nam
Hee-Bong Byun Photo
Hee-Bong Byun as Janitor
Sookyung Lee Photo
Sookyung Lee as Seul-gi's mother
Yong-ok Kim Photo
Yong-ok Kim as Management office director
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
920.74 MB
1280*682
Korean 2.0
NR
Subtitles kr  
23.976 fps
1 hr 50 min
Seeds 4
1.75 GB
1920*1024
Korean 2.0
NR
Subtitles kr  
23.976 fps
1 hr 50 min
Seeds 21

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by FilmMining101 7 / 10

Solid directional debut

Reviewed @Filmmining101Lovers of the Bong Joon-ho's (now) distinct style will find plenty to love in his directional debut, "Barking Dogs Never Bite" (2000). While the beloved South Korean filmmaker has indulged us into more socially conscious stories supported by sharp commentary around the working and human ethics which bound the film's world, "Barking Dogs Never Bite" is the first step towards an evolutionary scale of artistry that will attract moviegoers around the world for years to come.Starting his career with a less ambitious (for the lack of a better term) story, the movie features all his known trademarks you would have come to expect (e.g., imposing architecture, isolated main characters, layered storytelling). Dressed heartily with black humor, this comedy centered around missing dogs in a massive apartment complex has reflective undertones about a society that neglects its citizens (before they do it themselves first). Dogs, used as a symbol of status, currency and supply even between the lower socio-economic individuals seem to be having a better life than their owners live in a poetic sense of irony.Struggling to make means end and lacking a job, our "hero", a dubious and passive academic is in an abusive relationship with his pregnant wife, hates dogs and has no money to buy out his promotion to professor. This protagonist becomes the key player in a tale of theft, misunderstandings and social allegory which the West rarely offers. Typically in a Joon-ho flick, several elements are usually metaphors for the cast's state of mind and the story's progression: cigarettes breaks and dogs represent freedom in a world that relies on self catered interactions to move forward. Bae Donna's character is also stuck in a thankless position of building management conjuring an interesting dynamic with Sung-Jae Lee's pair-less academic and complementing the same coin from a different side.A master at blending genres with extreme efficiency, Joon-ho manages to generate suspense from the simplest of circumstances; an account of Boiler Kim's (who represents the working and honorable class of South Korea) tragedy feels like something that John Carpenter would direct, echoing similar sentiments in Joon-ho's own Oscar winning "Parasite" (2019) nineteen years later. When the final resolution comes in the complex parable of human relationships, Bong-ho's script keeps the audience guessing on whether this will end in tears or laughs simultaneously making it clear where he and his actors stand. Occasionally it does feel smaller in scale and less engulfing in its thematic presentation than the rest of his iconic filmography with with frequent tonal shifts and a not so likeable main character, especially for those who like dogs. But it is the birth of one of the most important voices in cinema which three years later will give us the masterpiece that "Memories of Murder" is (2003).
Reviewed by vze32kxa 7 / 10

most notably the movie is different.

The movie never has a real climax nor is it set up to have one. The most redeeming quality is its passivity. Such a comment may not seem like flattery, but hear me out. The movie very accurately captures the mundaneness that is life and the ever so rare mishaps that disrupt it. If drama is life with the boring parts cut out then this movie manages to successfully cut nothing out. I suppose that is the beauty of the movie: nothing ever seems contrived or pieced together. There are no real villains in this movie nor is it designed for the audience to choose sides. The movie is therefore flat, but in this case that is a good thing because it is different. As far as the comedy goes, on about three or four jokes I genuinely laughed at. Again, they are lines one might hear in real life discourse. Ultimately I got a sense of sincerity out of the movie, and for that it is worth a viewing.
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