The Film:
As cinematic times move forward, so do cinematic tastes. Ten years ago, very few people would've talked about Eastern cinema, and when they did it would usually be about the latest John Woo flick or a new martial arts epic. Move forward to the last few years, where thanks to the advent of DVD, people have widened their tastes, making Asian cinema very popular. Whilst it may have been about swordplay ten years back, the new favourite is the revenge film, made largely in thanks to Chan Wook Park's trilogy of films. Whilst this new international interest has sparked many poor copycat films and American remakes, it has also bought us some great films, such as "Oldboy" (2003) and now "Dog Bite Dog", a relatively unsuccessful film from 2006.
Directed by Pou-Soi Cheang, "Dog Bite Dog" focuses on Cambodian Pang (Edison Chen), who as a child was forced to fight in a ring for food. He has now been sent to Hong Kong to kill the wife of a judge in a restaurant. Escaping to a food hall across the road, he is found by detective Wai (Sam Lee) who goes through the pain of watching Pang shoot a couple of innocent bystanders and one of his colleagues. After being arrested and put in the back of a police car, Pang manages to escape, so starting a chase for his arrest by Wai. Pang, however, falls for a young girl after he kills her Dad at a dump, making himself leave clues as to his whereabouts right through to the gripping end finale.
"Dog Bite Dog" was a film I went into not knowing much more than the fact it was revenge thriller, so I embraced myself for the now formulaic plot. I was surprised however, when the film didn't take the twists and turns I was expecting it to, and despite knowing the film was going to be violent, I was a little surprised by just how brutal it really was. The plot is still soft however, with too many waning sub-plots that could have been edited out making for a more enjoyable film. The acting ranged from average for the majority of the secondary cast, to above average for Lee, to downright surprisingly exceptional for Chan. Amongst sub-plots of romance, internal affairs and a lot more police officers being killed, "Dog Bite Dog" is a very brutal film that should be watched, but unfortunately is let down a little by the strength of the script.
The DVD:
This 2-disc DVD is packaged in an amaray case that is housed in a cardboard slip-case that also includes 2 postcards.
Video:
Unfortunately the picture quality is the poorest part of the disc. For the majority of the film, the settings and scenes are dark and with this came a lot of compression artefacts that are considerably noticeable throughout the entirety of the film. Some slight edge enhancement was also present, but the fact there was this much dirt on a print for a film from 2006, makes the picture very disappointing, even if it is better than VHS and certainly watchable.
Audio:
Joy Sales have included three different audio tracks on their two disc release of "Dog Bite Dog". We have a DTS track in cantonese and a Dolby Digital 5.1 track available in both Cantonese and Mandarin. For the review, I watched the film with the DTS track which was pretty damn good. The music soared through the speakers and sound effects in the action scenes made good use of the surrounds. The LFE was a little quiet but when it was used it was definately to good effect.
Optional subtitles are also included in both Simplified and Traditional Chinese as well as in English for the film and ALL the extras.
Extras:
This two disc set adds plenty of extras to the mayhem, all of which (apart from the commentary) can be found on disc 2.
The audio commentary is with director Pou-Soi Cheang and producer Tak-Sam Leong who are moderated by the DVD's supervisor, known only as William and four 'movie fans' (Ah Zip, FayeCat, Ryan, LittleSam). The commentary starts well and is interesting whenever Cheang and Leong are given the room to go into the detail. It is spoilt however, by letting the movie fans ask random uninteresting questions which thankfully get pushed to the side and ignored.
Next up we have a collection of three deleted scenes only available as a play all function. Calling them deleted scenes is taking things for granted a little as really they are just extended versions of Pang in the restaurant, the 'garage' sequence where number plates are being changed on a taxi and the scene where Pang is back with fighters in Cambodia. They don't really add much.
We also have a small selection of featurettes. "Give Me Another Chance" is nine minutes worth of behind the scenes footage from the restaurant and street scenes. "My 2nd Language" looks at actors being shown how to pronounce words in Thai and Cambodian for small sections of the film. "Battlefield" is three minutes of behind the scenes footage of crew setting up the action scene where a cop gets run over by a truck. "The Funniest" Videos is just aselection of random clips of cast members playing up to the camera. Unfortunately, none of these featurettes add anything to increasing our knowledge about the film and some narration or some sort of structure would've helped considerably. They definately have no reply value.
We then have a documentary entitled "My View To The Film". Bringing together interviews with principle cast and crew this extra is an informative look at what they all think about the story, their characters and working on a major production. Although some of the cast members pretty much say the same thing, this 66 minute documentary is the most valuable extra included after the commentary.
An image gallery is also included.
OVERALL:
Recommended for fans of Asian revenge films, though because the extras aren't really up to much on disc 2, you might want to get the cheaper single disc release.
