By Yun-hua Chen.
A portrait of a town on the brink of obliteration and a meditation on lives rendered powerless by political and socioeconomic currents….”
A man and a dog in a small northwestern town in China’s Gobi Desert—this premise might sound like a minimalist bore, but not when the man, Er Lang, is played by Eddie Peng. The choice of the character’s name, Er Lang, is no coincidence, evoking the mythological deity Erlang Shen from The Investiture of the Gods, a 16th-century Chinese classic novel, who is famously accompanied by a loyal dog. Taciturn to the extreme, Er Lang speaks only a handful of brief phrases throughout the entire film, his primary language being a whistle: to summon the eponymous black dog, to lull it to sleep, and, heartbreakingly, to mourn it as he piles raw stones onto its grave. The black dog, hunted by a government-sponsored dog-chasing team tasked with eradicating strays, is as much Er Lang’s anchor to his birthplace as it is his guide away from it.
After winning Un Certain Regard Prize at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, Black Dog continued its festival circuit with a screening at the Viennale. Its aspirations to an international arthouse audience are clear: the film is both a portrait of a town on the brink of obliteration and a meditation on lives rendered powerless by political and socioeconomic currents – universalized themes of survival and displacement while anchoring them in a distinctly localized context.

The town of Chixia teeters between desolation and demolition, its fate determined by the mechanical claws tearing through its ruins. Inhabited, abandoned, and decaying spaces overlap, as the townspeople await demolition compensation. The zoo, improbably still operating, owes its survival to Er Lang’s father, who feeds the remaining tiger, birds, and ducks with a near-religious fervor. The father’s stubborn resilience mirrors that of his son—a man hardened by the barren landscape, scarred by a tragic incident that sent him to prison, and emotionally distant despite his innate tenderness.
Maybe too self-aware of the receiving end, the film feels like a compilation of ideas that are not always held together seamlessly. The cinematography is stunning, but its reliance on a grey-toned filter feels overfamiliar for films set in such regions. CGI-rendered dogs and surrealist, occasional comedic moments jar against the otherwise grounded sociorealist tone, and the film’s visual parallels between humans and animals, a recurring motif, often feel heavy-handed: stray dogs guard hilltops early in the film, a composition mirrored latered as townspeople ascend the same hills to witness a solar eclipse – must the solar eclipse be viewed outside the town? Before embarking on this excursion for the eclipse, townspeople liberate the zoo animals: birds reclaim a canteen, a tiger prowls the streets, and a peacock perches on a window frame of a local residence. These moments of magical surrealism evoke a fleeting fantasy, a metaphorical rewilding of the town, though their on-the-nose symbolism dulls their impact.

This theme of rather maladroit parallelism extends to Er Lang’s father, confined to an abandoned hospital as fireworks herald the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. Townspeople gather at a public square to watch the countdown, juxtaposing the father’s decline with the bombast of national celebration. The era of overblown hope, construction, and reconstruction—a recurring motif in contemporary Chinese cinema—is rendered here with a boldness that veers into unreflected sentimentality. The soundtrack, featuring Pink Floyd’s Mother and Hey You, feels especially dissonant, clashing with the environment and reflecting the director’s inner state more than the film’s narrative coherence. Similarly out of synch is Er Lang’s love interest, who feels shoehorned into the story – a token inclusion in an otherwise hyper-masculine, womanless world that struggles to justify her presence.
Eddie Peng, magnetic as ever, embodies the lone wolf archetype, though his natural charisma occasionally works against the plausibility of his character. Leaner, weathered, and sunburnt compared to his previous roles, he radiates a quiet intensity, masking his native accent in a near-silent performance. This minimalist, emotionally restrained allegory marks a significant departure for Guan Hu, best known for patriotic box-office juggernauts like The Sacrifice (Jingangchuan, 2020), The Eight Hundred (Ba Bai, 2020), and the anthology My People, My Country (Wo He Wo De Zu Guo, 2019).
Here, Guan’s heroic figures give way to an anti-hero: freshly released from prison, Er Lang is defined not by a sense of belonging but by his profound alienation—a stark contrast to the nationalistic pride often central to “main-melody” films. His struggle is not for glory or homeland but simply to exist—a lonely, almost surreal journey through a dying town where man and dog become one.
Yun-hua Chen is an independent film scholar and critic and associate editor of Film International Online. Currently, she serves on the board of the German Film Critics Association.