How to Steal a Dog concerns ten-year-old Ji-so (Lee Re), who is currently living out of a van with her mother and little brother. She has come to resent her mother for her inability to put a roof over their heads, and she decides to take matters into her own hands. She misinterprets an ad for a house, and she comes to believe that it only takes $500 to own a home. And when she learns that some people offer rewards of that amount for finding missing dogs, she hatches a plan. With the help of her best friend, she puts together a scheme to steal Wolly, the dog of aging restaurant owner Lady Marcel (Kim Hye-ja), hoping to earn a reward when she eventually returns the pet.
The film lives on the tension between the fun fantasy of childish hijinks and the sobering reality of homelessness. On paper, this is just a cutesy, low-stakes heist movie where kids try to steal a dog. But there are surprising depths to this story. It endears with fizzy comedy derived from the depiction of its characters’ limited understanding of the world around them, and follows through with emotional sincerity as it explores the darker corners of its premise. This film manages to be both cute and deeply affecting.
The main characters are precocious, and their schemes have a certain complexity to them that’s almost entirely whimsical. But when outside the context of trying to steal a dog, the film delivers really sober depictions of modern life for children. These children come from broken families, and are rushed into a shade of maturity as they come to witness the deep flaws in their parents. The film finds something vital in Ji-so’s steely attitude. She doesn’t think very highly of her mother, and so she comes to believe that she’s the one who has to keep things together.
But as smart and resourceful as she is, she doesn’t really understand the world. She doesn’t know what it takes to get a house. She doesn’t understand what it is that makes fathers leave their families. The film finds its emotional core in this lack of understanding. For a child, things are supposed to be simple. Ji-so doesn’t quite recognize the complexities of adult life yet, and this results in some really painful scenes between her and her mother. It’s surprisingly edgy stuff for what is ostensibly a children’s film, but this film just seems to trust in its audience’s ability to hand with this story.
Because as grim as things get, this is a very positive film that champions empathy above all. And it never loses its sense of whimsy, even when things get kind of grim. Director Kim Sung-ho works some real magic balancing the different sides of this story. The film also benefits from an amazing cast of actors. The three lead kids, Lee Re, Hong Eun-tak and Lee Ji-won are all pretty terrific. These kids are able to stand toe-to-toe with some of Korea’s finest thespians, namely Choi Min-soo and Kim Hye-ja.
How to Train a Dog gains no favors from the Tagalog dubbing. Some of the lines are awkwardly delivered, and it feels like some of the nuances are lost in translation. But the quality of the movie shines through anyway. It transcends language, the film succeeding in performing a delicate balancing act between childish simplicity and adult complexity. It is a family film in the truest sense of the phrase, the movie delivering content that can be enjoyed by moviegoers of any age.
My Rating:
