It takes a very careful but wildly imaginative mind to come up and film Barking Dogs Never Bite. It's a mind that knows that a story isn't important here, and shouldn't be, which is a risk for any filmmaker, much less a first-timer like Bong Joon-Ho was. It's loosely structured around two people, Yun-ju and Hyeon-nam, who live in an apartment complex and each deal with the rule of 'no dogs' in their own way. As do other tenants, like the boiler-room janitor, who finds the stray (or near-dead) dogs and makes them as part of soup. And, basically, Joon-Ho follows these two main souls, one a flaky accountant who loves to be outside, and another an aspiring professor who can't stand the sound of dogs barking and decides to do 'something' about it, and fashions a very entertaining character study.

Moreover than being really great about its characters, of whom the filmmaker has the utmost concern and warmth over (much like in his film the Host, where the hilarity that comes from them and around them would appear to be quite genuine), it's just brilliant visual storytelling. I loved seeing how he framed his character hiding in a closet in the boiler room as the janitor comes in and tells his buddy the story of the dead man buried behind two layers of concrete. I loved seeing that chase scene where our main heroine chases after the hero (or is it anti-hero) after he does something rather alarming with a small dog. And I just loved the mood of the piece, how he rolls in jazz music (Cowboy Bebop fan one might think or hope), and how on a dime an amusing moment could turn really serious, and then back to amusing again, sometimes in the same scene - the lonely old lady with the little dog and loads of untended radishes shows that quite clearly.

A lot of this could be too quirky and unlikely in other hands, and certainly it couldn't be quite done like this in America (many in the audience gasped at some of the perilous moments with the dogs - most comparable, though still lighter, than Amores Perros). But the filmmaker, already running out of the gate on his first try, sticks with the darker modes of his tale and makes us care about these people, even when they're imperfect or just plain stupid or cruel, and their own ways of redemption or feeling important to themselves is what counts. It's a comic powerhouse and a serious debut, light and dark, full of vigor and little moments that are quiet enough for us to see these people, like the pre-professor and his pregnant wife with a few sad truths hidden beneath her, and that girl's unyielding heart. It's like the ideal date-movie introduction to Asian cinema for Wes Anderson fans.

Oh Jesus Christ this movie was out there.

Granted I have a huge fascination with Asian cinema and definitely love South Korean movies quite a lot, so of course I jumped at the chance to watch "Barking Dogs Never Bite" (aka "Flandersui gae") when I stumbled upon by random chance in 2019 - a mere 19 years after it was initially released.

Given the high rating it had on IMDb, I was believing that I was in for a treat. Which I actually also was, but not a treat of the good kind. How this movie managed to score this high of a rating is simply beyond my comprehension. Because this movie was unfathomably slow paced and it had such a scrambled mess of a storyline that it was literally painful to bear witness to.

Sure, the movie had some good acting performances and Doona Bae really carried the movie quite well with her aloof performance. But wow, this movie was quite far from being entertaining. And the slow pacing of the storytelling just seemed to prolong the ordeal and suffering that is "Barking Dogs Never Bite".

Once the movie ended I was sitting dumbfounded on the couch thinking to myself "was that really it?" I was so disillusioned with the outcome of this movie and had expected something quite else frankly, given the high rating the movie had scored here on IMDb.

And the movie starts out by proclaiming "no animals were hurt during the filming of the movie". Right! Well just how do you explain the two scenes where dogs were suspended into the air by the leash around their neck. Suffocating of an animal right there. No animals were hurt... yeah right!

I have watched it to the end, so I can now check it off the list, and I can in all honesty say that I am never returning to watch this movie a second time.

Writer and director Joon-ho Bong (The Host, Mother) went for black humor in his directorial debut.

Who among us, even those who own dogs, have not been upset at a yapping dog? Well, Yun-ju (Sung-jae Lee) is stressed over his job and his pregnant wife, and just can't stand a yapping neighbor.

This really get hilarious as Yun-ju is killing dogs, the maintenance man is eating them, and guess what his wife brings home? Meanwhile, Hyeon-nam (Doona Bae - Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, The Host) is about to lose her job because she spends so much time helping others.

The missing dogs connect Yun-Ju and Hyeon-nam. Along the way, both get what they want, or do they?