Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.






There are kids all over the World.

And then there are kids. Two of them, their foot unarmed, translucent with an odd magenta, blushing with diseases. They stand on the lowest planate surface, the only one left, reserved for them. This is a chasm, an abyss, a lucky break they salvaged to. Everything is rising around them, ascending with monstrous power. They are monsters, carcasses of monsters that refuse to lie down. Colossal as they are, they stand and unconsciously make contact with the clouds. The kids amuse themselves in this dirty playground. All the while a crow, sickened from its own tastes of food, glides ruthlessly, drawing short streaks of lasers in the air, and crashing its hungered frame into the decomposing giants. But its aging agility shows, its impulsiveness just missing the tantalizing meat still freely hanging onto the large mass. Its claws fails to hook into the adamantine thickness of the flesh, and the chunk heavily drops down onto the low ground. It make a sudden sound that is somewhere between a loud splatter and a reverberated chime. The two kids turn their heads in unison, aghast by the devilish blessing of food – or whatever it is. One starts to make his advancement towards the piece of garbage, step by step, step by step, until there are no steps left. He felt a raging fury suddenly placed behind the back of his head, gaining strength instantaneously, and slamming his head down, a small cleft was blown in on the unfriendly surface. The collision between the child and the Earth was so hard that the rubbles of dry dirt jumped with fear. He had no time to react with pain before the force came down again. A knee, a punch, or a combination of both, whatever it is, it is adamant on stopping him from getting the ultimate prize; that damned meat waiting inches away from his fingertips. The two kids wrestled, and wrestled, for the end of their Lives, the end of their plight, and the monsters watched with their closed eyes. And when all the fists and legs starts to fail, they start biting with bare teeth, at each other's throats, like dogs. Two little kids beating each other, for scraps and fragments of filth and junk. The asperous valley ululates with uneven cries of despair. Indeed, hope lies at the bottom of Hell.



And at the bottom of an illegal cargo ship, the constant groans of the steam engine awakened him. The Cambodian man (played by Edison Chen) opened his eyes to something possibly called hope; a bowl of boiled rice offered from an extending hand above. It stared at him just as he stared at it. The smoke rises and sizzles with a collected restraint, but it mocks him nonetheless. It invokes his senses by playing in his nostrils. These short seconds of pleasure ends when the hand almost expectedly flips the bowl upside-down. The slabs of rice slides down the edges of the bowl, and hits the unwashed floor like little garbage bags. The Cambodian wastes no time and aggressively picks up the dirty rice in handfuls, and loses himself in his meal; licking his palm, sucking his fingertips, down to the last grain. Just like a dog.



And a few moody days later, the dog becomes lost in the streets of Hong Kong. The amorous stench colorfully lifted itself from the blustering cement; the puzzles of a million footprints trying to find their way home. He followed with no rations of reason, but only with hunger. The people only gave him their disdained attention. The streetlights are afraid to reveal their brightness. The Cambodian waits for the boss to pick him up in an isolated corner. He found a spot, stood, turning his frail body left and right with caution, beaming with his eyes at this vast stranger that dawned before him. He isn't worried about what he is going to do, but he is concerned about what is going to happen after he's done it. His thinking came to a halt when two rectangular flashes rudely interrupted the carefully placed nightfall from across the boulevard. A dog's whistle. He was startled. It was calling for him. He had a choice, a choice like a childish gust of wind, tugging at his shirt from behind with an invisible strength, but he chose not to choose it. He walked forward, the assassin's courage solidified under every step. His hand reached the handle, and grabbed it, but the gravity of the obese door hammered down on his long-abandoned muscles. It took him some strength to open it wide enough for him to get in. He was more amazed than shocked, realizing his physical hardiness has softened in those days under the ocean. He has finally entered his tomb. The yellow cab silently took off. Hopelessness and doomage secretly followed.




A defeated amber glow stayed in its comatose form, afraid to open itself up to fear, afraid to move, and surrendering itself to the uncanny and nigrescent voyeur peering in from the outside. The people were no better. They hid themselves poorly. They sat, arranged in a polite order. Tuxedoes, suits, and dresses all trying to look their best. Forks, knives, and chopsticks work in junction over the food. All eyes were shifting, their irises sneaking to the center of the room before rushing back to where it's supposed to be. They were all trying to apprehend the strange confusion that is taking place not far away. Their hearings hastily eavesdropped; they know that the waiter has already repeated his question the fourth time, but still receives no answer from the customer, who was in filthy dishabille, as if he has just been chased through a sewer. The intense discomfort and nervousness alone could have ended light itself, and it almost did. The customer looked around with a wavering expression; he caught the other customers in the pretentious act of quickly going back to their food and menus as soon as he saw them, pretending to ignore the situation as best as they can. The alien customer mimicked them, carefully picking up a pen and randomly pointed to a spot on the menu. The waiter furrowed his eyebrows, taken aback, and then immediately left to roast the food.



The customer waited, for food, dog food, real food, actual food. It was all he wanted, it was all the same. You kill a dog, and then you cook it. You kill a man, and then you bury it, or send it into the oven. It was all the same, at least until the minute that you become the meal. Until he became the meal; until the smell of his own flesh, and the ripening of his skin cells, teased and thrilled his olfactory senses. He was clearly insane, but now is not the time to lose our minds. Because the food arrived, and better yet, the real food came in as well. He was going to enjoy both, quietly keeping his solemn glee deep in his troubled soul. He looked at the food, observing its beautiful placement before his eyes. He then hounded the dumplings and the battened beef mercilessly, all five plates of it that he could not possibly atone for. His instincts slowly flared with each bite, like little erratic sparks of fireworks that punctured his senses every now and then. His fear was his excitement. He was shaking as he vehemently shredded the meat and the dumplings with his teeth. Stuffing balls of food into his mouth. The remains of this savageness flew about, and left disturbing marks, trails, and red stains all over the luxurious tablecloth. His actions then became automatic, he had no more control over his thought process, his breathing became short laboring puffs. His head swung to the right, and eyes zoomed and patrolled all the way across to the other end of the restaurant, towards her. Colors trembled around him, and his vision was like a sharp needle-like angle that stung the center of his reality. He got up so quickly and abruptly that the chair he sat on fell painfully onto the light carpet. He vigorous marched towards her, her image was as clear as ever, when he got within a speaking distance, he reached into his suspicious duffle bag. Forks and knives clashed, and dropped on the floor, the lights animated and lost control, wives suddenly clutches their husband's arms. The wolf has finally struck. Bullets to the head.


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The cop (played by Sam Lee) rolls his eyes, and walks in to yet another meaningless murder scene; one he surely doesn't give a damn about. A cigarette, held loosely in between his teeth, releases a streaky air of arrogance. His hair playfully pullulates atop his awkward scalp, holding perverse thoughts, and reluctantly cooperating with his deep and extended expression of boredom further down. His face is stretched vertically, like a demonic goat, with a very short goatee that lives with sheer audacity. He is none other than the Devil's Own, all he is missing is a sharp tail and a pitchfork. He walks across the displaced chairs and disturbed tables in the restaurant. He stood above the victim, female, in her late 60s, apparently having her own brains for dinner less than a few hours ago. The cop bends over, fancifully interrogating the corpse, sniffing her hair, testing the aftertaste of fresh blood. The man, is clearly, more insane, and more than a fair fight for the Cambodian pitbull who is now roaming through the Hong Kong streets like a hunter, still searching for food.



The food, slowly squishing and writhing, knotted itself into a position of grotesque disfigurement, it pumps its unfinished breaths in agonizing ataxia and chaos. The cop took a violated glimpse into the hole, he couldn't see far, so instead he caught the end of an elongated bronze structure covered in red tint. At least that was what his eyes told his mind, and his mind’s eye singed at the uncomfortable image, a wound widened, and a new one was scorched open inside it. He wondered what the burning sensation felt like, and now he knows, and he envisioned his cranium eating and chewing away at that damned bullet. But not for long, his private masochistic apparitions were stopped cold by a familiar hand which angrily clasped down on his shoulder, grabbing his dusty coat all at the same time. He turned around with much detest and boredom, as he unflinchingly suppressed his animosity to the all too familiar voice chastising him once again on his lateness, his indifference, his aloofness, and how the only reason he even has this pathetic job as a cop is because of his father. He's the "mud" that just can’t stick. And there's no point in sticking around much longer as he found himself thrown out of the investigation. He lights another cigarette outside in the ghastly dawn, as quiet as death. He finds it calming.



And then, a Cambodian dog incautiously drifted into the floating serenity, like atoms of jagged dust abruptly trespassing into the corners of one's eye. The cop, almost lost in boundless wonder, tries to collect himself and pinpoint the target, which is moving with haste and exasperation through the thick blue shadows. The dog has lost patience in waiting for his owner. It began to pace around in repeated circles, trying to summon the whistle he heard earlier, but this time there is only the maddening ringing of sullenness. It was over for him, he had no idea what to do. He was disoriented, lost in the marine clouds that hung low, and the disturbed ringing confidently intensified into an impulsive force that no man can reckon with. It rushed straight at him, and the flesh dyed the metal. Everything fell down and tumbled. He wrestled with himself, his senses exploded, segments and scraps of his intuition dispersed into millions, going crazy out of their minds. He quickly grabbed hold of himself, and used the mere physics of the cemented friction to stop the scraping of his skin. In this hectic ecstasy, an animal has gone wild, gone berserk in the forest of Humans. The threatening sounds of the city have endangered him. And now, the dog will fight to survive. The cop sees this, and he will follow him and to the end of the bottomless pits, and then eat him alive. The chase begins. Dogs become men, and men will become dogs.

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And dogs search for garbage. The Garbage that is being shoved in faces, the mouths being force-fed piles and piles of nature's feces. The edges of broken glass tasting blood, the gritty nail hammered into flesh. The babies disemboweled with knives, the bullets redecorating your facial structure. "Dog Bite Dog" is shameless. It is a film so violent it threatens your Life. Men's primal language were inaudible screams, voices that broke apart the sky, rain came down. Heavy rain that poured down with vengeance, and the animals were locked in their own pandemonium, Jaw-to-Jaw, Teeth-to-teeth. Dog Bite Dog is this vision-less bliss, and it is only right. Its blind fury strikes at no one, but at the same time, anyone and everyone. It's meaningless to a point, but contradictorily expressive under the care of up-and-coming director Pou-Soi Cheang. He never stops pushing, falling, stretching. He dares to surround the viewers with problems and dilemmas, asking them what came first, order or chaos, peace or violence? And when we watch the film, we shake our heads and wonder if there even is an answer to this insanity itself.



But this is very much what insanity looks and feels. Orange, a deep and profound orange that burns like the Sun. And no one is immune, no one can escape. It battles the brooding darkness in one lone street ally, light combusts, and guns go off. The cop and the Cambodian beast pounding back and forth, the mud stained with sin and damnation. The evocating moment chillingly drew out all of our emotions. And not before long, the orange star finds him again, and shines bright over a vast and vibrant garbage dump. It was a panoramic sea of filth, but it was a dog's paradise. And it was the only moment that the blue skies peeked in, showing their faces. The Cambodian found temporary refuge in this photogenic terrain; easily the most beautiful and innocent image captured in this entire film. At the end, we get to see Cambodia, third world hell, a sad amalgamation of everything that has happened earlier. The plants have no water left in them, the soil crumbles into yellow sand, and the yellow beaming eye watches with disdain from above the flaming sky. And the unsatisfied and completely erroneous conclusion only left us a more bittersweet taste.


In the end...there are only kids...two of them left....fighting...biting for survival.....like dogs.


So bittersweet, but ends with almost nothing to redeem.


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age