Puh-ppies!
It’s a good damn thing there are cute dogs in this.
Gohan
Directors: Chayanop Boonprakob, Nattawut Poonpiriya, Atta Hemwadee • Writers: Thodsapon Thiptinnakorn, Sopana Chaowiwatkul
Starring: Kitachima Yasushi, Poe Mamhe Thar, Tontawan Tantivejakul, Kori, Meechok, Hima
Thailand • 2hrs 21mins
Opens Hong Kong May 28 • IIA
Grade: C
Seeing as that the latest tooth-shattering weepie from Thailand to make huge waves has three credited directors, you would be right and correct to assume that each of them helmed one segment of the manipulative dog drama Gohan | โกฮัง..หัวใจโกโฮม. Produced by the same studio/factory that unleashed How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, it’s been reported that Gohan outperformed The Super Mario Galaxy Movie in its opening weekend, and that’s not hard to figure. Who doesn’t like a dog movie. Okay, fine, lots, but just as many like a good pet-focused weeper. And make no mistake about it: this is a dog movie. It’s all about the dog no matter how hard the army of writers and directors try to make it about something else. And it’s really all it has going for it, because aside from, maybe, the first of three slices of life from three distinct periods in one dog’s, it’s a manual on how not to take care of a dog dressed up as a charming picaresque. And it’s a slog.
Starring Kori, Meechok and Hima (really, who else are you watching this for?) the triptych follows the dog from one owner to the next over the course of his life, lost and found again and again, shot with bright, streaming-ready flat images that barely scratch the surface on its “themes” of home, acceptance, loyalty, letting go, and memory but which take aim at the tear ducts anyway. How effective that is depends purely on your susceptibility to dog trauma. Spoiler in 3… 2… 1… The dog doesn’t die.
That face
Some of the stories are loosely based on bits and bobs drawn from the directors’ own lives, at least one of the dogs was a stray and the pooches (who are adorable because puh-ppy!) were supposedly well cared for on set. Doesn’t mean the stories reflected that.
Chayanop Boonprakob (Friend Zone) kicks off the saga of Gohan, a gorgeously white stray who hangs out around a 7-Eleven in Chonburi, and who bonds with Japanese expat auto exec Hiro (Kitachima Yasushi). Both are cast-offs of a sort, as Hiro is not so subtly being forced into retirement. He tries to ditch the dog, but after he names him Gohan – like the pure white of cooked rice – he gives up the fight and retires to the seaside with him because look at that face! This part of Gohan is its most engaging, with the least overt animal abuse and a sweet dynamic between the old guy and the young pup giving each other reason to live fully. Sad days, though, because that was 2019 or so, and when COVID hits Hiro dies, leaving Gohan abandoned. Nattawut Poonpiriya (Bad Genius) picks up the baton when Burmese migrant worker Namcha (doctor-activist-actor Poe Mamhe Thar) runs away with the newly named Brownie after she frees them from the exploitative Kung (Nopphand Boonyai, Thirteen Lives). One thing: Why is she letting a dog have chocolate? Finishing off the trilogy is Atta Hemwadee (Not Friends) and his story of Hua Takhe station hobo dog Hima, named so by student Jaidee (Tontawan Tantivejakul, How to Make Millions) and her on-off boyfriend Pelé (singer Jinjett Wattanasin). They decided to look after the again-deserted mutt in his old age while they massage their own shitty relationship.
If there were no cute dogs in Gohan it would be almost entirely free of any value. Okay, that’s a stretch, but Gohan would be a lot harder to watch without them – and it’s a challenge now, rivalling Isshin Inudo’s Haw for insubstantiality wrapped in a similar package. Chayanop, Nattawut and Atta certainly took zero notes from either the studio or their own editors (four of them!) because the idea of a three, 30-minute-parts structure never made it to the table, leaving us to suffer Jaidee and Pelé’s gawdawful, manipulative romance for what feels like an interminable hour, the polar opposite of the relatively tight 30-ish minutes of Chayanop’s opening, strongest entry. The film flails around, concocting misadventures for the dog and his partner to have, mostly reducing Gohan/Brownie/Hima to a tool that inspires some kind of modest revelation in the bland characters about themselves. Nattawut’s hero, Namcha, is straight up negligent, though we’re supposed to take her for a spunky idealist who sucks it up and ultimately does what’s right, but her chapter has a modicum of visual flair thanks to its dusk and nighttime passages, and it hints at a larger story about labour exploitation – dog and human – it never really explores. In the end Gohan is all inoffensive surfaces, but if you’re in the market for some skin deep mawkish escapism and you’re a sucker for dog acting, this is for you. And remember: Adopt, don’t shop.