Dog Bite Dog

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Movie: Dog Bite Dog
Chinese: 狗咬狗 (Gau ngao gau)
Director: Pou-Soi Cheang
Writer: Matt Chow, Kam-Yuen Szeto, Melvin Li
Producer: Sam Leong,Shin Yoneyama
Cinematographer:Fung Yuen-Man
Release Date: August 17, 2006
Runtime: 109 min
Language: Cantonese
Country: Hong Kong

Plot

Cambodian criminal Pang seems less than human from the moment he appears, stowed in a cage-like structure on a smuggler’s boat. The childhood product of a cruel, backwoods death-match boxing compound, he’s a young man for whom raw animal instincts take the place of any moral reasoning. Pang arrives in Hong Kong with no grasp of the local Cantonese language, an empty stomach and a scrap of paper clueing him in to the grisly assignment before him. Meanwhile, a bitter young cop, Wai, is perpetually butting heads and breaking rules in his department. Alerted to Pang’s crime, Wai leaps into action, and is soon confronted face to face with the hit man’s ruthlessness. The two begin a violent descent into depravity and vengeance, and the lines between cop and crook, predator and prey, human and vicious beast are soon blurred. But when Pang takes a simpleminded, sexually abused refugee under his wing, the stakes are raised even more dramatically and circumstances hurtle toward a shocking climax of tragedy and redemption.

Notes

If you’re in the mood for a fun, feelgood romp, for God’s sake, look elsewhere. Unlike so many Hong Kong cop-versus-criminal capers, Dog Bite Dog is no honourable gentleman’s joust of begrudging mutual respect. As the title suggests, this is a battle to the death worthy of the most savage nature documentary, a collision of unstoppable force and immovable object -- one driven by unfettered vengefulness, the other by the will to survive at any cost. The hostility between Pang (Vancouver-born actor/fashion designer/rapper Edison Chen, who’s been seen in Infernal Affairs, The Twins Effect and the American-made Grudge 2, and is working musically with with Kanye West) and Wai (’98 Hong Kong Film Award winner and co-star of Beast Cops, A Man Called Hero and One Nite in Mongkok) isn’t just palpable, it’s almost unbearable. And as a bonus, beloved Johnnie To regular Lam Suet turns up in a strong supporting role.