asgeir-b This movie tries hard to be quirky and surreal without succeeding and instead falls flat on its face from scene 1. The story is very weak, all the time going into supposedly funny and surreal directions, seemingly due to a lack of plot. The characters are unengaging and uninteresting, and the funny bits aren't funny. It is beautifully shot, but this doesn't help when there is absolutely no meaning to it all. The point that you won't find love until you stop looking so hard for it is hammered in from the very beginning, and gets tiring and annoying. The similarities to Amélie (which I loved) are obvious, but where that movie was genuinely fun and heart-warming this movie just feels contrived.

James McNally I saw this film at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival. I'd heard some buzz around this film, that it was sort of a Thai Amelie. In fact, it's Amelie cranked up to 11. Which is entirely too much. This film is absolutely overstuffed with whimsy. A narrator tells us the story of country boy Pod, who comes to Bangkok to find work and falls in love with Jin. Along the way, he loses and then finds his finger, drives around a chainsmoking talking teddy-bear as well as a man who licks everything, and shares his house with a gecko that has the face of his dead grandmother. If that's not enough, the object of his desire is an obsessive neat freak who carries around a book written in Italian that she can't read. A case of mistaken identity sends her off on an environmental crusade that results in her accumulating a mountain (literally, a mountain) of plastic water bottles. Will this pair find love in the end? Well, by the end, I didn't care that much.The problem was that the visual tricks and whimsy overwhelm the characters, who end up being nothing more than a collection of quirks. The constant voice-over also never really lets the characters tell their own stories, and the romance never feels believable.Sasanatieng is obviously a director of huge talent, and there are quite a few great sight gags and some really original visuals. But there's just far too much of it. It's like eating a whole chocolate cake at one sitting. If he could tone down the trickery a bit, and find a story with real characters, he could one day make a really outstanding film. This isn't it yet, but I hope he does it.

adambehr In a world of derivative, colorless copycats, this was breath of fresh air. It was a small masterpiece in my view. Simultaneously funny, strange, charming, and blissfully shocking at times.From the very first frame I was thoroughly entertained, and the absurdity was refreshing and often wildly hilarious in it's originality.It has an underlying sentimentality which went on a little bit long - otherwise I would have given this fantastic show a 10! Most shocking to me here however, was the fact that other comments about the film in this section show how far this went over some people's heads- and that they just didn't get it.This film is a jewel - I want to buy it when it comes out on DVD - and the music is catchy and hilarious.

vanguard98 Granted the setting is vastly different (contemporary Bangkok) and there's not a drop of blood to be seen, "Citizen Dog" is a brilliant sophomore work from the director of "Tears of the Black Tiger" -- one of the best and most original movies I've seen in the last ten years.Retaining the odd color schemes in a somewhat muted form, and excellent choice of soundtracks, this movie is really a lot of fun. A large ensemble of bizarre characters completes the picture including a dead motorcycle taxi driver, an amnesiac addicted to licking things, and a talking, chain-smoking teddy bear.Follow the adventures of Pod as he moves to Bangkok from the country, takes a number of different jobs and meets Jin, the girl of his dreams. Along the way, a number of really weird things happen and everyone gets a tail, but hey, love's like that.