European Premiere | Out of Competition | Restored Classics
South Korea, 2000 / restored 2024, 110’, Korean
Directed by: Bong Joon Ho
Screenplay: Bong Joon Ho, Son Tae-woong, Song Ji-ho
Cinematography (color): Jo Yong-gyu
Editing: Lee Eun-su
Music: Cho Sung-woo
Producers: Jo Min-hwan, Tcha Seung-jai
Cast: Lee Sung-jae (Yoon-ju), Bae Doona (Hyun-nam), Kim Ho-jeong (Yoon-ju’s wife Eun-sil), Byun Hee-bong (security guard), Ko Soo-hee (Jang-mi)
Date of First Release in Territory: February 19th, 2000
Yoon-ju (Lee Sung-jae), a low-ranking university lecturer, is already stressed out by money troubles, his failure to secure a full-time teaching position, and the impending birth of his first child. His wife, very pregnant, is irritable and often lashes out at him. On top of it all, one of the neighbors in his high rise apartment complex has a dog that barks constantly, driving him nearly mad. The apartment rules say the residents aren’t allowed to have pets, but the rule is widely ignored. The rest of his problems seem impossibly hard to solve, but one night Yoon-ju snaps and decides there is something he can do about that damned puppy.
Meanwhile, Hyun-nam (Bae Doona, in a luminous performance) works at the apartment office, fielding inquiries from residents, making announcements over the apartment loudspeaker, and occasionally wandering off for a smoke with her friend Jang-mi. One day a young girl comes into the office with handmade leaflets, asking for help in locating her missing dog…
Barking Dogs Never Bite is a hard film to characterize: a social satire aimed at multiple targets, that sometimes meanders down unexpected narrative detours. Its characters are flawed but very human, and the film is not afraid to occasionally turn dark and unexpectedly cruel. Of course, we could simply describe it as a Bong Joon Ho film, and that would go a long way towards preparing viewers for what to expect. But this was Bong’s very first feature film, and in numerous ways it is unique within his filmography.
To a certain extent, we can see the apartment complex in which this film is set as representing Korean society as a whole, with indifferent management, every person out for themselves, and disturbing things going on in the basement without anyone’s knowledge. It is also a searing indictment of academia, with professors more focused on hedonistic drinking parties than on teaching, and bribery standing as the only path to career advancement.
Apart from its themes and cutting humor, countless small, innovative details are scattered throughout the film, making for some of its most memorable moments: pears rolling down the street, the predominance of the color yellow; a dispute resolved by a roll of toilet paper; abrupt cuts to airplanes or imaginary cheering crowds; and the legendary, hauntingly-narrated tale of “Boiler Kim.”
Most viewers seemed a bit bewildered by
Barking Dogs Never Bite when it was first released in the year 2000, and it wasn’t until his second feature
Memories of Murder in 2003 that Bong Joon Ho started to be recognized as a significant auteur. But there is just as much creativity in
Barking Dogs Never Bites as in any of his other works. It is particularly exciting to be able to watch it now in the Korean Film Archive’s new, digitally-restored version, so that its visual inventiveness can be fully appreciated, and so it can find the audience it always deserved in the first place.
Bong Joon Ho
In the two and a half decades since his debut, Bong Joon Ho has become the best-known Korean director of his era. His second feature Memories of Murder has been selected multiple times by local film critics and scholars as one of the top three Korean films of all time, and his follow-up The Host set a new box office record in Korea. Starting with Snowpiercer he has alternated between Korean-language and English-language projects, finding his greatest success with Parasite, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and became the first film in a language other than English to win a Best Picture Oscar.
FILMOGRAPHY
2000 – Barking Dogs Never Bite
2003 – Memories of Murder
2006 – The Host
2009 – Mother
2013 – Snowpiercer
2017 – Okja
2019 – Parasite
2025 – Mickey 17