Product Details

• Actors: Sung-jae Lee
• Directors: Bong Joon-Ho
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: Korean
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Magnolia Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: July 20, 2010
• Run Time: 110 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B003JSSPRK
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #150,328 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Barking Dogs Never Bite" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Woof, July 10, 2010

By 

Daitokuji31 (Black Glass) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Barking Dogs Never Bite (DVD)

After years of graduate work pursuing his dream of becoming a professor of humanities, Yoon-ju finds himself unable to gain employment while his former colleagues continue to advance in the ranks of academia. Of a relatively passive nature and unable to build up the gumption to stand out amongst his peers, Yoon-ju spends most of his time at home where is domineering, pregnant wife bosses him around and reminds him constantly that she supported them while he pursued his graduate studies. To make matters worse, the unemployed academic's nerves are constantly being scraped by a ceaselessly barking dog. With the heap of stress upon his shoulders, the bespectacled Yoon-ju finally snaps one day when he sees a fluffy little dog outside an apartment's door. Thinking that this dog is his enemy, he runs after it and, after catching it, thinks of tossing it off the roof of the building or hanging it by its own leash. Unable to do either of these, Yoon-ju locks the dog within a cabinet down in the apartment building's boiler room. However, a couple of days later, he hears the annoying parking again and realizes that the dog he imprisoned is not the annoying dog that grates his nerves. He rushes downstairs to rescue the imprisoned dog, but when he opens the cabinet the dog is not there. Instead, to both the horror of Yoon-ju and the film audience, the building's janitor soon appears with the dog in a bucket and before Yoon-ju's eyes prepares the dog for stew.

Hyun-nam is a young office worker who is more interested in hanging out with her best friend at the latter's mom's convenience store and sticking her nose into the affairs of others. One day, a young girl comes into her office needing some bills stamped so she can display them throughout the town. The bills are for a missing dog. This little incident soon brings Hyun-nam in contact with Yoon-ju's apartment building, a place where little dogs go missing and get tossed off of roofs.

Barking Dogs Never Bite is the debut film of Bong Joon-ho who gained domestic and international recognition for his films Memories of Murder and The Host. Barking Dogs Never Bite is a dark comedy which becomes a bit hard to watch at times for animal lovers. However, the film is also a good commentary on the trials and tribulations involved for one living inside a large apartment building and some of the unsavory methods involved in trying to improve one's station in life.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite Korean movie - hilarious, suspenseful, appalling and moving., January 5, 2011

By 

M. P. Wells - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Barking Dogs Never Bite (DVD)

Finally! I've been waiting nine years for this movie to come out on US DVD, ever since I saw it at the first New York Korean Film Festival in 2001. I knew it was just a matter of time, since director Bong has gotten a lot of international attention for his three subsequent features, "Memories of Murder," "The Host" and "Mother."

Those are all terrific, but this this simultaneously depressing and exhilarating black comedy on the suburban rat race is still his best. It's got all the stuff that makes Bong distinctive - his caustic cynicism about human nature and human institutions combined with an unfeigned compassion for humans as individuals; an affection for marginal, oddball types that doesn't tip into sentimental idealization; snappy visual wit full of imaginative framing and editing; a finely tuned ear for enormously funny but penetrating dialogue; a glee in booby-trapping the plot with surprises large and small; a daring but exquisitely right mix of contrasting tones - horror and humor, slapstick and melancholy.

The actors are all perfect, particularly the two iconic leads. Handsome superstar Lee Sung-jae plays against type beautifully as a henpecked, career-stalled academic so spineless and full of repressed rage he seems about to curl into himself and vanish. And this was my first glimpse of the enchanting Bae Doo-na, Korea's #1 actress for playing endearing misfits and no-hopers, something she's never done better than here.

I could go on and on - this is a little-acknowledged modern classic. Whatever the hell "modern classic" means.

(But yeah, if you're supersqueamish about harm to cute, fluffy dogs, you might want to approach with caution - it's a major part of the story. That said, there's a disclaimer at the beginning that no animals were harmed in the shoot, and there's nothing onscreen that makes me think otherwise - it's mostly offscreen suggestion.)

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Underrated Little Masterpiece, June 14, 2011

By 

Slow Guy "keelhauler" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Barking Dogs Never Bite (DVD)

Good God, some people are just totally unable to see the forest for the trees! This film is a wonderful little gem from the early days of a director who is now internationally acclaimed as a brilliant young talent. I found it hilariously funny (albeit in a very dark way) -- yes, including the dog-dinner scenes -- as well as witty, quirky, warm, incisive, and ultimately moving in the way it shows the final redemption of the quasi-villain. As the timid dog-killer confesses his crimes to the heroic slacker, I could read the wonderful panorama of complex and conflicting emotions going through their minds on both their faces. I wanted to give them each a hug! In fact all of the actors were wonderful, including the supporting and minor characters (the crazy homeless man was a hoot, and the Amazonian best friend with the unexpected tender streak made me wish I had a pal like her to get my back). If you can't appreciate their excellent work because you cannot get over the dog scenes (even though they're staged anyway) or the 'offensive' satirical observations -- well, I guess you'd better just stay away from anything that's not warm and fuzzy and uplifting in the future (although the ending of this movie could well be called that, too, in its own offbeat way). Oh, and by the way, all the people who found the dog scenes (again, staged) offensive and THEREFORE decided this movie is garbage (yes, I mean you), I hope you condemn any movie that features the killing of human beings (some even do so in the spirit of humor!) in even stronger terms... you do, right?