Asian Film Review: Dog x Police: The K9 Force (DOG×POLICE 純白の絆, 2011)

While in Tokyo for the TIFF I watched a screening of the Japanese film 'Dog x Police'. It's about a Tokyo policeman who gets transferred to the K9 unit after leaving his post to chase a suspect.  The down on his luck officer gets paired with a sickly albino dog that no one thinks has what it takes to be a police dog.  And guess who teaches who a thing or two about life?

Yes, the Japanese love underdog stories... And in this case it's literally an underdog dog!

If it was just about the officer and dog overcoming their deficiencies to become an awesome team, that wouldn't make this that exciting of a movie. But the filmmaker includes a serial bomber plot line to give the K9 unit something to focus on.

The characters and plot are relatively 'paint by numbers' straight from the 'How to Make a Japanese Underdog film for Dummies'book.  It also borrows heavily for the popular Japanese dog movie genre as well (Hachiko, Will, etc). Of course you can expect the ending to be extremely (extremely extremely) over the top melodramatic. Lots of prolonged emotive scenes of self sacrifice, etc... (the 'melodrama while we are about to die' scene is almost as long as ' Space Battle Ship Yamato'... ALMOST).

Its all par for the course but ultimately delivers on a relatively unique spin on the tried and true formula.  6/10 if you aren't expecting much realism. :-P

Extra bonus points for the final on screen appearance of 'Steve Jubs'... a black turtleneck clad American businessman who is the ultimate target of the serial bomber! :-P

(The film was made several months before 'Jobs' passed away.... bad timing on the release though!)