Barking Dogs Never Bite (플란다스의 개, "Dog of Flanders") is a 2000 film from South Korea. It is the debut feature of director Bong Joon-ho, and is a Black Comedy similar in tone to later films of his.
Ko Yun-ju is a frustrated academic — broke, scrounging for a permanent teaching position, and with a pregnant wife (Eun-sil) that seems to dislike him. Piled on top of those irritations is the sound of a yappy, barking little dog in the apartment complex where Yun-ju lives. He kidnaps the dog, and locks it up in a storage closet in the basement to die — only to hear the yapping again and realize that he kidnapped the wrong dog.
Also living in the apartment complex is Park Hyun-nam (Bae Doona), who works there as a low-paid staffer/maintenance person, but has dreams of stardom. Hyun-nam, who has been in contact with residents of the apartment complex looking for lost dogs, eventually catches Yun-ju throwing a dog off the roof.
Bong Joon-ho actually lived in the apartment that appears in the movie as Yun-ju's apartment.
Tropes:
- Asians Eat Pets: Eating dog meat is a thing some people do
in Korea, although it's become more controversial in the 21st century. In this film Yun-ju goes back to let the dog out of the closet, only to find that the janitor has killed it and used it to make a stew. - Ask a Stupid Question...: An irritated Hyun-nam is smoking a cigarette on the balcony after the Prank Call incident. Her roommate says "Hyun-nam, are you up?", which just annoys Hyun-nam even more, so she answers "No, I am sleeping!"
- Black Comedy: Tons. Yun-ju throws a dog off a roof. He goes back to liberate the first dog that he tried to kill, only to find the janitor, eating it. Yun-ju's friend tells him a ridiculous story about another professor he knew, who died when he was decapitated by a subway train while staggering around the subway station drunk off his ass.
- Body in a Breadbox: The janitor tells the homeless man a story about "Boiler Kim", a boiler maintenance man who died accidentally in the basement and supposedly was walled up in concrete by his panicking buddies.
- Dramatic Drop: When Hyun-nam watches Yun-ju throw a dog off the opposite roof top, she drops the binoculars, which are smashed on the ground belo. This pisses off her roommate, who owns the binoculars.
- Dramatic Irony: Lots of this in the scene where Hyun-nam, her roommate Jang-mi, and Yun-ju all discuss the dog-killer that Hyun-nam chased through the building, with the two women unaware that Yun-ju is that dog-killer.Yun-ju: Did you see...his face?
- Establishing Character Moment: In her first appearance Hyun-nam attempts to give up her seat to a pregnant woman on a train, when no one else will. It establishes her as considerate and generally good-natured, although she does have some character flaws that are revealed later.
- Flashback: A flashback accompanies Yun-ju's friend's lurid tale about how an acquaintance of his was decapitated by a subway train.
- Ghost Story: As the homeless man and the janitor share the janitor's stew (which the homeless man does not yet know is dog meat stew), the janitor tells him the story of "Boiler Kim". Supposedly, Boiler Kim was in the basement inspecting the boiler, when he got in a fight with the construction workers, stumbled back into a wall, and died when his head slammed into a nail protruding from the wall. The construction workers panicked and walled him up, and Kim's spirit haunts the boiler which moans at night. As the janitor tells this story, the light from his stove lights up his face from below in classic spooky ghost story style.
- Gray Rain of Depression: It starts to rain as Yun-ju tells Eun-sil that their dog disappeared. In the next scene Eun-sil is forlornly eating snacks out of a convenience store, while Yun-ju is outside in the pouring rain, looking for the dog.
- Henpecked Husband: Yun-ju's wife Eun-sil bosses him around. In one scene Eun-sil, who apparently is having Wacky Cravings, demands that he crack over a hundred pecan shells so she can eat the pecans. She also yells at him for being late and harasses him for drinking with his coworkers. Subverted later when a tearful Eun-sil reveals that after losing her job, she spent her severance on bribing Yun-ju's dean so he could get a tenured teaching position.
- Mister Muffykins: The bane of Yun-ju's existence. He kills a loud, annoying, yappy little dog—or at least he thinks he does. After finding out he got the wrong one, he kills a second little yappy dog by throwing it off the roof of the apartment complex. Then his wife brings home still a third annoying, yappy little dog.
- No Name Given: The janitor with a fondness for dog meat, and the homeless man who joins him in eating dog stew, are never named.
- Prank Call: Hyun-nam is woken from sleep by a phone call from a woman at a TV station, who claims to be reuniting her with pop star Yoon Sung-ju, who has named her as his childhood sweetheart. Hyun-nam is halfway through putting on her clothes to go to the station when the woman on the line reveals it's a prank call, to Hyun-nam's fury.
- "Psycho" Strings: Psycho-style dissonant strings are on the soundtrack when Yun-ju hears the sound of the yapping dog again and realizes that he kidnapped the wrong dog.
- Rooftop Confrontation: Hyun-nam goes to the roof and is surprised to find the homeless man in possession of Eun-sil and Yun-ju's dog. She proceeds to take it from him in a tense scene that's followed by him chasing her through the building.
- Satire: Biting comic satire is used to lampoon various issues in Korean society, like the practice of eating dog meat, bribery in higher education, or the poverty-level wages of university professors.
- Scary Flashlight Face: The light from the stove casts this effect on the janitor's face as he tells the story of how Boiler Kim died and was walled up in the basement.
- Shout-Out: The original Korean title is an ironic Shout-Out to the A Boy and His X story A Dog of Flanders, a British children's book that is oddly popular in Korea and Japan.
- Sleep Cute: It's because she drank until she passed out, but it's still cute when Hyun-nam falls asleep snuggled up against her roommate on the subway train.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: The flashback story about the professor who was killed in a ghastly subway accident shows the drunk professor messily vomiting all over the place, right before he's decapitated by an oncoming train.
- Watch Out for That Tree!:
- Yun-ju, spooked by the sudden appearance of the homeless man as he's trying to sneak out of the basement, flees in terror, and is knocked out cold when he runs right into an overhead pipe.
- Hyun-nam is running at top speed, right on the heels of Yun-ju, chasing him after she saw him throw a dog off the roof. She is fleet of foot and has almost caught up to him, when a resident of the building opens his door. She runs right into it, and Yun-ju escapes.
