Black Dog

Many films about the special relationship between man and his four-legged best friend have been made over the years, and it’s a formula that nearly always manages to please. So it is with the latest offering from writer-director Guan Hu, the story of a former inmate who’s been paroled to his hometown on the fringe of the Gobi Desert in northwestern China after 10 years in prison for a manslaughter...

"Lang" (Eddie Peng) has returned to his hometown after a term in prison. We learn a little more about the causes of that and of his distant relationship with his zoo-keeping father as the story develops, as well as discovering that he once was one of the place's more famous citizens being in a popular local band. With the Beijing Olympiad (2008) looming large, there is quite an emphasis for the go...