ajstuns see this movie if u have nothing to see, then u won't want to see any more art films.waste of time.2 hours, no dialogues, no script.pathetic movie.the good thing about the movie are it's cinematography and costume design.if it made as a short film it would be far better than this thing.

willwoodmill The modern film world is one filled with excess, and I'm not just talking about manufactured Hollywood block-busters. No there is even a large amount of excess in films that are more "artistic" if you will. And I want to be clear, that is not necessarily a bad thing, several films recent films have done wonders with just the concept of excess beyond reason, like The Wolf of Wall Street for example. But I do feel like something has been lost in the film world, a certain subtly that filled the films of Bergman and Ozu. A restraint that served to exemplify the characters and their struggles. Luckily there are some contemporary directors that are trying to continue this subtlety, and one of those directors is Ming-Liang Tsai.Stray Dogs is the most recent film by Ming-Liang Tsai, and well Stray Dogs doesn't have a plot, at least not the conventional sense. The film instead follows the lives of a few different characters, and tries to capture them as they are. The film brings the audience close to these characters and let's the audience understand them for what they are. To say that Stray Dogs takes its time is an understatement, every single scene in the film is slow and is stretched to the very limit of filmmaking. And believe me when I say that the scenes are at their limits. There are two scenes in the film that go on for so long that it exceeded not only anything else I had seen in any film, but they exceeded anything I thought possible. There is something very hypnotic about these scenes, Ming-Liang Tsai forces the audience to just stare at these characters for minutes on end as we soak in their facial expressions and slowly become one with them. It is something that is truly gorgeous and needs to be seen to be understood.If the actors in Stray Dogs were bad or even just average the film would be completely unwatchable, but luckily for us they are all fantastic. Especially Kang-sheng Lee, who plays the father of a small homeless family. (Kang-sheng Lee worked with Ming Liang-Tsai on several of his films.) He gives one of the most enduring and real performances I have ever seen. Another thing that's needs to be great for the film to work is the cinematography, which is also fantastic. The film is shot in a very matter-of-fact way, things are just shown as they are. The camera only a moves a handful amount of times in a film that's over two hours long. And the colors and lighting are just wonderful. Overall Stray Dogs is one of the most refreshing films I've seen in a long time, and if you think you can handle a really, really slow paced film, with a very unconventional narrative structure. I would highly recommend Stray Dogs.8.6

flora_li_2000 Most of the time when we go to see a movie, what we look for is to be entertained. So by definition those movies are entertainment. The people who make those movies, even though they call themselves artists, are actually entertainers. We look for self recognition, relaxation, amusement,... Yes, entertainment. We are used to being fed plots and emotion quickly. But some movies are actually art, and the movie makers, are truly artists. They do not entertain, they educate. They do not entertain, they inspire. They do not entertain, they lead. This is one of those movies, it is basically about desperate poor and unimportant people's life under microscope. Not an unusual story but It is told in a very distinctive and unconventional way. The director once said, why does a movie have to to have a story with beginning, peak and ending? Why does a scene have to have something happen? Weird, right? Yet if we open ourselves to the possibility that there is not a fixed way to make a movie, we may be returned to the original stage of our senses, while we were much softer and sensitive as we Do not have a box in our head. There are A lot of long takes. Some I like, some I do not, the funny thing is, when I am determined to be open and not anxiously waiting for some big movement in the scene, I find those long takes sometimes not long enough. Because I now feel the emotion of the character and my emotion flows with the scene, but the take cut short before I can switch. This is really a brand new experience. I won't talk about the splendid performance and the black humor in the move, if you are patient and open you will find them yourselves, as long as you are the kind of audience who enjoy art, in addition to entertainment.

Sergeant_Tibbs My first Tsai Ming Liang film was his fifty minute odyssey of a monk moving very slowly through Journey To The West. I unexpectedly loved it, so I was ready for any challenges he had for me in his second film of the year Stray Dogs. Yes, it has an abundance of slowly paced and ethereal shots, but here he had a loose narrative. It's all about the anguish of living on the fringe and the film perfectly evokes that emotion as characters silently battle the elements. There's not a shot quite like the scene where its lead sings tearfully while holding up a sign. However, the film lacks an essential economy to make it worth all its 138 minutes, even if it is beautifully shot for the most part. It needed more time in the editing room, and more time in the writers room at that. There's not enough layers to the characters and story to make it completely satisfying, besides potential political meanings that flew over my head. Its best when its eliciting a devastating trapped sensation with an eternal cycle offering no escape.7/10