BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE (2000)

An idle part-time college lecturer is annoyed by the yapping sound of a nearby dog. He decides to take drastic action.

by Cian McGrath 18th February 202518th February 2025 Leave a reply

As someone who’s been fostering a needy rescue dog for months, I can attest to how utterly aggravating a dog’s incessant barking can be. However, my annoyance pales in comparison to the throes of madness that afflict Ko Yun-ju (Lee Sung-jae), the protagonist of Barking Dogs Never Bite / 플란다스의 개, when he must suffer through the seemingly endless yapping of an unseen dog in his expansive apartment building. It’s not surprising why this unfulfilled, unemployed academic would be overcome with rage at this annoying sound, but it’s more than a little disarming how quickly he comes around to the thought of killing this unknown pooch, kickstarting an enjoyable—if meandering—comedy-drama about trying to find purpose in life.

Barking Dogs Never Bite (also known as A Higher Animal and Dog of Flanders) is best-known for being acclaimed director Bong Joon-ho’s feature debut, and one can glimpse shades of his ability to seamlessly blend comedy and drama here. Though this debut is certainly more rough around the edges than the filmmaker’s other works, its twisted premise makes for a highly entertaining black comedy. Thinking that his woes are over after locking a small white dog in a closet (after deliberating on whether or not he should chuck it from a rooftop or hang it), Yun-ju will have his world turned upside down very shortly after this. Not only was this innocent creature not the culprit behind the incessant barking within his apartment complex, the dog wasn’t even capable of making such noises due to problems with its throat.

Yun-ju is back to square one, a feeling he is likely very used to given his unrealised hopes of gaining full-time employment in his chosen field. The film cleverly parallels this protagonist’s woes with the monotonous routine and dejected outlook of its other main character, Park Hyun-nam (Bae Doona), a young woman who despises her role as a maintenance worker and bookkeeper. Hyun-nam spends much of this movie fighting off the urge to sleep, having become listless from her monotonous working life and the sway it has over her lifestyle and perspective. Soon the pair will be engaged in a pursuit, with Hyun-nam looking to apprehend this dog-killer while Yun-ju desperately tries to maintain his anonymity in this regard.

But for most of Barking Dogs, neither character is aware of the other’s existence. By honing in on each of their uniquely despairing outlooks, Joon-ho presents a wide-spanning critique of work culture and its debasement of the human spirit, while impressively never reducing this fun story to a bland treatise. Flashes of the director’s keen eye for capturing the grace and lyricism of movement can also be found here, amplifying a story that would have come across as too quirky for its own good from almost any other filmmaker.

Although it’s interesting to look outside of Barking Dogs as a piece of entertainment to ponder on its themes, it’s difficult to connect with Yun-ju’s situation when so little of his routine is displayed. When he does appear onscreen, he generally has some semblance of purpose, even if that’s only through an immediate task at hand (which could range from disposing of plastic bottles to throwing onions down the street so he can distract an old woman and kidnap her dog). It’s never boring to follow this character, but perhaps that’s to the movie’s detriment, as we can never get any meaningful insight into what his state of unemployment looks like. Even a single scene depicting a banal action from his mundane routine would have gone some way towards making his frustrations more understandable, while recognising that his response to this pressurising stimuli is as delightfully deranged as they come.

Some of the music numbers in Barking Dogs are hilarious, especially when they’re intentionally at odds with what’s being depicted onscreen. A serene, wistfully melancholic piece of music plays just as Hyun-nam’s friend Yoon Jang-mi (Go Soo-hee) races forward to kick a car’s side-view mirror off its hinges, soaring in its beautiful and tender notes as the pair wind up doing nothing of interest, merely standing together on a train. In many ways, this comedy-drama contains hardly any notes of the latter, yet feels like an enjoyable blend of the two given the absurdity of its characters’ behaviour is and how straightforwardly this is presented. Barking Dogs treats these insane people’s personalities as if they are merely a fact of life, making their identities feel authentic and lending an unpredictable air to the movie’s plot beats.

At times this unpredictability should have been reined in more. When Yun-ju realises his literally fatal mistake regarding the dog he mistakenly blamed for the barking, his attempts to rectify the situation culminate in him peeking out of a closet at the apartment complex’s janitor (Byun Hee-bong) as the latter character prepares to dine on the dead animal. The janitor is not skimping out on making the most of this meal, having brought a pot and stove with him to arrange a bountiful feast, as well as two briefcases full of sharp instruments to pry the flesh from this creature’s body. This darkly funny moment gives way to a very long monologue from the janitor that has no real direction or purpose, flailing around and outlasting its welcome by a wide margin. Such moments are rare in Barking Dogs, but the film is still guilty of meandering, contributing to its disjointed narrative. Within this series of comic misadventures there’s very little of substance holding the plot together, whether that’s these characters’ hopes and dreams or thematic subtext linking their frustrations with their attitudes towards working life.

There is a more substantive and emotionally absorbing narrative lurking somewhere within Barking Dogs, but Joon-ho proves unable to access it. Yun-ju’s deranged actions won’t substantially change his circumstances, but they feel necessary given how meaningless his life has become without a job to anchor his daily schedule and self-image. His new identity makes him feel worthwhile, just as it steers his thoughts away from how his employment status has damaged his willpower. Conversely, the weary Hyun-nam is desperate to beat up someone who’s committing an injustice so that she can be labelled a hero and receive widespread praise. Her working life has reduced her self-worth to that of a cog in a machine, so the only satisfying antidote for this dreariness is being made to feel like she is special. In both cases, these are terrible solutions for their dilemmas, but they appear rational to two people so disillusioned that they are being psychologically destroyed by the presence—or absence—of their working lives.

Although neither character necessarily wants what the other has, it’s still fitting that both of these protagonists should be locked into a cat-and-mouse chase with one another, searching for glory and fleeing responsibility as they race headlong down this twisted adventure together. Maybe it’s in these missions that they have found their purpose, but that too is fleeting, both for the characters and regarding viewers’ investment in this story. If there’s any poignancy to be acquired from these themes, the film struggles to convey it, even when it sets them up so well. Unable to build on its comic or dramatic elements to make for a lasting, memorable experience, Barking Dogs shoots itself in the foot by only focusing on being entertaining. Luckily, this still makes for a very funny—if uneven—debut from one of South Korea’s greatest filmmakers.