The Pye Dog

B

Directed by Derek Kwok Chi-Kin

"The Pye Dog" is a noirish Hong Kong thriller/melodrama that has received glowing praise mainly for what it is NOT rather than what it is. Indeed, "The Pye Dog's" ability to escape oversentimentality and shameless tearjerking even though it often heavily and liberally veers into melodramatic territory is impressive since the film so often comes dangerously close to resembling a Korean Rom-Com moreso than the thriller it is supposed to be.

The plot line is not entirely unfamiliar, featuring a career criminal who, upon meeting a troubled but endearing boy in whom he recognizes many of his own pains, slowly turns his back on his old life and in turn becomes a figure of robust and uncompromising character. In many ways it borrows from classic John Woo films such as "The Killer" where the protaganist, faced with the immorality or emptiness of his former life attempts to escape his past only to find himself unrelentingly pursued by it. "The Pye Dog" is no John Woo film, however, as the gun play is kept to minimum (by Hong Kong standards, at least) and more time is spent exploring the emotional states of the characters as opposed to staging intricate fight scenes. In this way, "The Pye Dog" reminded me at times of earlier Wong Kar Wai films such as "As Tears go By" and "Fallen Angels" but "The Pye Dog" is essentially geared towards younger audiences and lacks the depth of these types of films.

Although "The Pye Dog" never completely abandons itself to melodrama or simply pulling at the heartstrings of its audience, it is nonetheless obvious that the film is constantly teetering on the edge of doing so and this alone made it hard for me to really enjoy the film. Although melodrama itself is not always bad (just go watch "Farewell my Concubine" if you don't think it can be done artfully!), pitting your climactic scene against a backdrop of Debby Boone's "You Light up my Life" is pretty much asking for abuse. Despite disappointing lapses in judgement such as this from Kwok Chi-Kin, "The Pye Dog" is overall a fairly strong effort and is undeniably enjoyable if not particularly deep or memorable.