Movies about dog owners and their canine companions have always been a popular cinema subgenre, especially in recent years as witnessed by such feel good entertainments as Arthur the King (2024), Dog (2022), Togo (2019), Megan Leavey (2017) and A Dog’s Purpose (2017). Taking an entirely different approach to family dramas like these is the 2024 Chinese film, Gouzhen (English title: Black Dog), an unsentimental, tough love tale about two pariahs in an economically depressed wasteland; one is a former prisoner returning to his village, the other is a stray dog suspected of carrying rabies. With their feisty distrust of other people, the two prove to be kindred spirits and form an unlikely bond in Guan Hu’s sparse drama of survival and redemption. In some way, the man and the dog are mirror images of each other in that they both function as lone wolves.