Watch Barking Dogs Never Bite For Free

Just perfect...

Captivating movie !

Absolutely the worst movie.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Bong Joon-ho's debut film might just be his best work. Of course, he would later go on to direct Memories of Murder, The Host and Mother. Lee Sung-jae plays a grad student who is trying desperately to work his way to a nearly impossible-to-get professorship. He's henpecked by his very pregnant wife, and, to make matters worse, one of his apartment neighbors has a yippy dog that is just driving him mad. When he encounters the pooch outside its home unattended, he decides to solve the problem in a drastic way. Barking Dogs Never Bite is a black comedy. Very black, of course. You'd think it'd be impossible to laugh at a movie where dogs get hurt, but the movie is frequently hilarious. We can't sympathize too greatly with Lee, obviously, and the film wisely has a second protagonist, played by the always remarkable Bae Doo-na. She witnesses Lee's crime and attempts to do something about it. The plot is nice and twisty, always topping itself with its next movement. It's really one of the best written films I've seen in a while. Bong's follow-ups are all very good, but they have a weird mixture of drama and comedy. The comedy in them sometimes feels out-of-place. That's pretty much his style nowadays. Barking Dogs Never Bite isn't much like them. The comedy and drama are more organically meshed. I think it's a masterpiece.

A man is annoyed by a dog barking in his apartment building and he decides to take action.Wow, this was an rare experience. Comedies usually work because they live up to stereotypes that you recognize, this is very far from that brainless type of comedy. Because of its triviality and its ability to surprise this is highly intelligent and close to reality at the same time, and when its close to reality it doesn't take much absurdity to make it funny.All the actors in this did a good job. Bae Du-na is gorgeous, the janitor doing a job similar to what he did in 'Suchwiin Bulmyeong' and the pregnant wife very dominating. Bong Joon-ho is one to watch.Judging by some of the others experience of the movie it seems like they live up to stereotypes themselves. If you are offended by this, try reading some newspapers.

Joon-ho Bong made this movie as an attempt to give his vision about Korean society. You see the enormous buildings which are just like military barracks and you think at the movie of Mike Leigh "All or Nothing (2002)". The difference is that the South-Koreans find it normal to live in such an environment and they even are shocked to find out that somebody is living in the basement-flat and is eating dogs (?). They sometimes adventure themselves on the roof where they find out that some people are doing strange things there... This movie is a smart comedy but it is not a Korean masterpiece. Therefore the surroundings, the acting is not enough imaginative. Or perhaps this whole society is so boring that the movies you make about it cannot satisfy the people living in the big Western cities. The idea that somebody is collecting dogs from the street to eat them is frightening for everybody no matter where he lives and so the director brought us in a sympathetic way an universal subject with the necessary humour and self-relativity.

This is something of a rarity, a indie Korean film. It's also Joon-ho Bong's directorial debut. It's brilliant. Slow, but impeccably paced and broadly intermixed with multiple levels of wonderful comedy, acting, atmosphere (a kind of existential (and cement) wasteland), and directing. Be warned. Pet lovers are going to be shocked, and maybe outraged. But really, don't take this too literally, Joon-ho Bong knows he is playing with your sensibilities and he knows that you know it (or you should know it by now, if you have been watching film, tv, and advertising for your entire life). This is real cinematic virtuosity.The promotion for this film compared it to American Beauty and that was a somewhat surprising but very apt comparison. American Beauty would be a fine double bill with this. But, if you have not seen any other Korean films you should give some a try. I saw this as part of a festival with JSA (Joint Security Area), The Isle and some others, but those two were very good and would also be good for a double bill. A little farther afield might be Tsai Ming Liang's the HOLE, or even farther, (and certainly not for the fainthearted) Go Go Second Time Virgin by Kosi Wakamatsu. Both intense looks at life in barren modern times and barren apartment complexes.