Chinese Director Guan Hu on Releasing ‘Black Dog’ and ‘A Man and a Woman’ in the Same Year: “Both Films Are Simply About Life”
Chinese filmmaker Guan Hu has been on the move relentlessly in 2024.
In May, his tenth feature as a director, Black Dog, won the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious Un Certain Regard competition, giving him the highest international honor of his career to date. A few weeks later he premiered another finished film, the pandemic-set character study A Man and A Woman, in competition at the Shanghai International Film Festival. By July, he was prepping production on Dong Ji Dao, a big-budget WWII action film that is expected to be released next year. And now, Guan’s Black Dog is in competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival.
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A key member of China’s influential sixth generation of film directors, Guan debuted in 1994 with Dirt, a gritty portrayal of the Beijing rock scene in the early 1990s. He has since alternated between well-received low-budget projects, such as the black comedy Cow (2009), and more grandly staged commercial spectacles, like the WWII epic The Eight Hundred, which became China’s top-grossing film of 2020 with total ticket sales of $461 million.
Clearly falling into the off-beat auteurist category, Black Dog stars Eddie Peng as Lang, an effortlessly cool but seemingly mute ex-con trying to find his footing in a desolate rural town on the edge of the Gobi Desert. The story takes place as the 2008 Beijing Olympics are kicking off in the capital, but China’s de facto moment of ascension onto the world stage feels a universe away from the bitter concerns of Lang and the rough characters he consorts with in the country’s far northwest. The film finds its momentum when Lang joins a stray dog-catching crew — only to form a mysterious emotional bond with the city’s nastiest street dog instead of catching and subduing it. Praising the film’s “gorgeous” visual aesthetic and black humor, The Hollywood Reporter‘s critic summed up Black Dog by saying it’s “mostly about a very strange time and place, where men and dogs seem to be forever chasing each other around a desolate city on the verge of state-sponsored demolition.”
A Man and A Woman stars local A-listers Huang Bo and Ni Ni in the title roles of two troubled strangers who land in Hong Kong on the same transfer flight during the pandemic and end up confined in side-by-side rooms in the same quarantine hotel. The film’s subtle story turns on a growing bond between the characters as they share cigarettes and conversation on their adjoining hotel balconies, waiting for Hong Kong’s fabled skyline to blink back to life.
THR connected with Guan via Zoom to discuss the creation and overlapping themes of his two acclaimed new features.
Your two new films have a profound sense of place: Remote northwest China during the 2008 Beijing Olympics for Black Dog, and Hong Kong during the height of the pandemic for A Man and a Woman — both landmark moments for greater China. What broader themes, moods or messages did these places and times allow you to explore?
Time and place are very important in film. Films, of course, do have a commercial function, but another very important function is to record events and remind people of what happened. For example, when I watch Chinese films from the 1930s, I can see how Chinese people lived in that period — how they walked, how they ate, what they were thinking about and how they moved through the world. So, when people watch Black Dog or A Man and a Woman, one thing I want them to understand is what people had on their minds during the 2008 Summer Olympics or during the pandemic. With Black Dog, I wanted to show some of the tremendous change China has gone through over the past 40 years. I chose the Olympic Games [as a marker of time] because it was a very symbolic event — it represents a period of extremely rapid economic and social growth. When films explore the changes Chinese people have experienced over the past 40 years, they usually focus on the big cities. With Black Dog, I wanted to explore what happened in these small remote places during those times. I felt that these distant towns [near the Gobi desert] were very symbolic in their own way. In the 1960s, they were very prosperous places. But now they have no resources, almost all of the people have left, and the only thing that remains are the buildings — but the buildings have their own history, and their own story to tell. They have their own temperature, if you like.
Another important factor for Black Dog was that I lived with five dogs during the pandemic. Spending so much time in isolation with them, I experienced a certain language that humans and animals use to communicate. So, I wanted to make a film about intimacy and communication between humans and animals. During the pandemic, things were quiet and less stressful in a way, so that was a good time to start.
Another key detail that informs the spirit of Black Dog is that the protagonist is a former rock star. I know the Chinese rock music movement of the early 1990s was very important to you and your creative cohort. Your debut feature Dirt (1994) is an amazing time capsule of that period and scene.
Rock music was really important for young people like me in that period of the 1990s. Before we heard that music for the very first time, we had no idea there was even anything like that in the world. It was a very powerful experience — an awakening and an enlightenment, in a way. It was an expression of rebelliousness, I suppose — the fact that you could say no to everything. So it really marked me. The rock music that’s in [Black Dog] is a reflection of the things I was feeling in that period. It’s about the animal nature that we all have inside us.
It just occurred to me that rock music is also really important to A Man and a Woman. The protagonist of that film was also a participant of that 1990s scene, but now he’s middle aged and dealing with all of the complications of middle aged, middle class life. For me, both films shared a feeling of resignation. Rather than trying to rekindle the spirit of freedom and rebelliousness that this music once symbolized for them, the two protagonists seem to be trying to simply find a way to carry on — each in a very different way.
Yes, I agree. I think you’re correct in saying that. I suppose when you’re middle-aged, you start seeing the full sweep of your life. You can remember the energy and excitement you once had, but you also get a glimpse of the end — and you don’t want to get there. It’s about trying to find some of that feeling and vitality you once had. Both films are simply about life.
I think Western film reviewers would be tempted to connect the feelings these characters are going through with some broader commentary on China’s development over the past couple decades. Was that also part of your project with these two films? I started visiting China around 2008 and I remember the excitement and energy that was in the air in that period.
What I can say is that China’s development over the past 40 years has been extremely rapid. If you were there in 2008, I’m sure you saw some of it for yourself. I suppose now we could call this a comparatively stable period in China. Social change is the real background to Black Dog. In a sense, I think I’m very lucky to have been born in China in the time that I was, because people very rarely get to experience 40 years of such profound change. I’ve witnessed how different people adapted to that change in different ways. Without this firsthand experience, I think it would be very difficult to make a film like Black Dog.
Can you tell me a little more about what the protagonist of Black Dog represents for you — particularly his reluctance to speak?
So, the character, Lang, is an ex-convict who spent time in prison for a crime and we can assume that he’s been through a lot of suffering and trauma. Lang can speak, but he just doesn’t want to. This is his way of rejecting the society he’s returned to, because he doesn’t really feel that he belongs to it anymore. You could describe China in that period as being a really fast locomotive — some people managed to get onto it, some are still trying to catch up and others will be completely left behind. With this film, I wanted to explore how things look for those who have been lost or left behind by the huge changes that have occurred in China over the last 40 years. I think it’s important to record the lives of those people as well. What were they thinking? Where were they going? Are they trying to still catch up with the locomotive or not? Or can they find a different way to set themselves free?
The two lead characters of A Man and A Woman are feeling some of the same lostness as Lang from Black Dog, but they’re middle-aged cosmopolitan people dealing with lives that are complicated in a much more common, contemporary way. Their story takes them in a direction where it might be tempting to leave everything behind, but that’s clearly just not going to be possible for them. I find it interesting how both films deal with similar feelings of frustration and resignation, but they seem to provide the opposite answer.
Films exist to raise questions — and then the filmmaker sees if he can find a way to solve the problems that are raised. With A Man and A Woman, neither character really wants to go back to the life that they had before. Is that wrong? It’s not very clear to me. When Huang Bo [who plays the male lead] was describing the film to me, he said he could relate to the pressures you start to feel from all sides of your life as you get older. You’ve got your work life, your personal life; perhaps you have children and elderly parents to look after. And the whole family sort of climbs a mountain together. When you get halfway up the mountain, you need to take a rest. Usually what happens is that everyone looks at each and realizes they just need to carry on going up the mountain together. That’s what I was trying to show with this film. We’ve found these characters during a break when they are quarantined during the pandemic. In many ways, the two characters don’t really want to go back to their typical lives; but because of various social and family pressures, they don’t really have a choice. They have to go on climbing. Is that a tragedy? I don’t know.
What appealed to you about the pandemic experience as the premise for a character study like this?
Personally, and as a filmmaker, the pandemic had both positive and negative sides. The human and social costs were very severe, of course. Many people lost their lives. From a personal point of view, I lost a lot of work. But it was also a good thing for me creatively, because it created space for me to think about new things, or to reflect on life from new angles. I tried to reflect some of this in the film. Because of the pandemic, these two characters get stuck in a hotel quarantine that forces them to stop and reflect on their lives — and actually talk to one another. Being “trapped” in quarantine allows them to think about the ways they were trapped in their everyday lives. In this way, I think the pandemic experience was positive for some people.
Before these two character study films, you made a pair of big-budget war movies that became blockbusters. Was there a conscious reason you pivoted in this less commercial direction?
Well, I’ve sort of moved back and forth between auteur-style films and commercial movies throughout my career. It’s a very natural process. In some periods of my life, the challenge of a big blockbuster appeals to me, and at other times I’m drawn to a more intimate auteurist project.
So you don’t have a preference?
Well, I think most filmmakers always want to make auteur-style films. But obviously, commercial films have some advantages. You can experiment with different styles of film language and collaborate with all kinds of people. And blockbuster filmmaking allows for a more comfortable life. (Laughs)
I need to ask about how you got the rights to use Pink Floyd’s music on the soundtrack. This was the very first time the band has personally authorized their music to be used in a film, right?
Yeah, I thought it would be impossible to get them to agree. But I wrote them a long letter, explaining what it meant to me and asking if they would give us the rights. I suspect that when Pink Floyd read the letter they knew they would empathize with the spirit of the film. The fact that they agreed was very surprising to me, but I took it as a sign of their trust in me.
You also dedicated Black Dog to your father. Do you mind sharing the story there?
Towards the end of the making of the film, my father died. I suppose this film was also an attempt to try to reflect that relationship — which is the relationship between a lot of fathers and sons — sometimes one of antagonism but nonetheless ending in reconciliation. That’s what happens in the film, and in that sense, I suppose it was a gift to my dad.
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