Underdog

Lili is eleven years old and has a beloved dog – Hagen. Her parents are split up and when her mother has to go for a 3 month jolly with work to Australia – she has to stay with pops. Only he lives in an apartment where mutts are verboten. All cross breeds are seen as inferior to pure breeds in Hungary.

Despite her best efforts Hagen ends up on the mean streets of Budapest and she, in her innocent way, sets out to find him. Now that is the very simple synopsis for what is a film with so much more to offer. This is a cast of thousands – of dogs that is. All of the mixed breed dogs were untrained and rescued from shelters. The performances are stunning. There are scenes of animal butchery and animal cruelty – so if that will offend then this may not be for you.

It is also a parable about how one species dominates another in the belief it is the superior – and we all know that in parables pride leads to a fall.

This is also shot beautifully in a beautiful city with stunning realism and an eye for the impact that such a powerful story can make. Official entry fro the Academy Awards for best foreign language film 2015 and winner of Un Certain Regard prize at the 2014 Canes Film Festival – this is amazing, original, stunning and highly entertaining cinema.

White God 9/10 - This is a wonderful movie that plays as a parable about separatism and Hungarian politics during democratic rule. On the surface however lays an entertaining revenge flick against animal cruelty and a drama about the love of an animal towards it's human "the White God". The director uses a mish mash of genre's to keep the audience on it's toes, while paying homage to everything from Fuller's White Dog, to Hitchcock's Birds. The best part of the film was that they hired hundreds of shelter dogs and spent months training them, and after the film, the director and crew worked hard to get every dog adopted! These dogs are some of the best actors I have ever seen. This is a marvelous yet challenging film.

'White God,' or 'Feher isten,' beckons with a promising premise: A young girl's father puts her beloved dog out on the streets, and he must learn to survive as she looks for him. Every film poster, and the first visuals we see in the movie, further promise rather harrowingly that every dog really does have its day.

That is, certainly, the film we get. But it nonetheless seems to fall a little short of expectations.

Most notable about 'White god' are the human and canine leads. Bodie and Luke are the two dogs who accordingly portray Hagen in the film, and they have been expertly trained and are very convincing in their roles. More relatable is Zsofia Psotta as human protagonist Lili. She shines in her performance struggling with an overbearing father who doesn't listen, and determined to find her beloved companion. We feel Lili's frustration, exasperation, and anguish very keenly, emotions readily given life with the young star's capable skill.

Whether one is an animal lover or just especially empathetic around humans, this is a film that's not particularly easy to watch. The experiences of Hagen being tossed out of his home, and what he faces living on the streets, is heart-breaking to see played out on the screen. Likewise, again, Lili's troubles are very understandable: we've all had difficulties with parental figures, and the very idea of losing a pet is almost too much to bear.

The emotional element makes the narrative extra exciting as it runs toward the climax: We look forward to seeing Hagen and his new friends find triumph, and there's great anticipation of Lili being reunited with him. Yet this is unfortunately where 'White god' falters a bit.

We don't quite get the catharsis we were hoping for. Hagen and the other dogs get a chance to give as good as they got as they run the streets, but it doesn't reach the crescendo that we want it to be. Lili does find Hagen, but their reunion doesn't induce the burst of heartfelt tears we expect to find ourselves having.

The ending itself is very satisfying, and ultimately the perfect capstone for the film, especially from a purely artistic viewpoint. Still, after 2 hours of watching Lili and Hagen endure hardship, we want a greater sense of resolution than we get. As a result, as good as the movie is, we're left feeling a bit unfulfilled.

Although imperfect, 'White god' is absolutely worth watching. One should note a content warning for animal cruelty, and a bit of blood, but it's all movie magic: Apart from the trained canine stars, every dog that appears on the screen was a shelter pet that found a home after production wrapped. Now there's a happy ending!

The opening and closing shots of White God are beautiful and powerful realizations of Director Kornél Mundruczó's allegorical horror/thriller vision. Unfortunately, much of the movie does not meet this lofty ideal.

White God tells the story of Lili who is forced by her hard-hearted father to leave her dog, Hagen, on the streets to fend for himself. As Hagen falls into a cycle of abuse and abandonment, Lili becomes more independent and forgets about him. Hagen retaliates against his human oppressors by leading his fellow shelter-dogs in an apocalyptic revolution.

Let's get one thing out of the way first: the fact that this movie was shot entirely with real dogs and practical effects is simply masterful. The angry canine horde is the most terrifying group of animals since The Birds, but Mundruczó works very hard to keep the audience sympathetic towards them. Animal Trainer Teresa Ann Miller deserves some sort of award for convincingly training over 200 dogs to convey such a wide breadth of emotion. Although I cringed seeing scenes of abuse and dog-fighting, "they were always happy, and just playing," said Mundruczó to Fangoria magazine.

Unfortunately, the acting of the dogs is by far the best acting in the movie. The actress who plays Lili does this annoying pursed-lip thing that will make you want to smack her through the screen. Lili's father remains a contemptible a** to the very end. Even the evil dog trainer, despite having the most well-scripted character, couldn't be more two-dimensional if he had a mustache to twirl.

To make matters worse, the only parts of the movie that are any good are those with Hagen. Lili's story is droll beyond belief and just feels like a distraction from Hagen. I wish that I could have read this movie as an allegory about man's abuse of animals or as a metaphor for how easily the middle class forget about the poor. Unfortunately, the tediousness of Lili's story, which was obviously written in after Hagen's, kept distracting me from the movie's emotional and philosophical core. When the movie should have been showing similarities between Lili and Hagen, it often simply drove their stories further apart.

Now, don't get me wrong, this was definitely a "good" movie. I would consider it required viewing for fans of horror and suspense. As a dog-lover, Hagen's story really hit the emotional nail on the head. Mundruczó's ambitious vision is, in itself, highly commendable. It is unfortunate that a few poor directorial choices kept this movie from becoming the masterpiece it deserved to be.

Maybe an American remake will fix some of these problems? Probably not...

I would not call it a horror movie unless they meant the animal torture that was difficult to see if you are an animal lover like me. The movie is well made if you think about some scenes that have more then one hundred dogs in it. It sure must not have been easy doing that. But honestly it was not my kind of movie. I don't know why I watch this kind of movies sometimes. I just can't stand watching animal abuse even if I know it is fake. The revenge of the dogs is also not very credible honestly. A pack of dogs would never act like that but I guess it's okay because it's fiction. Zsófia Psotta, the kid playing Lili, did a good job though. She obviously has talent as an actress. All in all it's not a bad movie but, if you like me don't like to watch animals getting abused, then I would just skip this one.