Savage Dog (2017) poster
2017 · action · drama · revenge · sports

Savage Dog

Directed by Jesse V. Johnson1h 35m2017
ElsewhereIMDb5.04kRT71%
  • sombre
  • kinetic
  • extreme
  • cold
Movie DNA

Sombre, breathless, extreme action / drama, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

A story set in Indochina in 1959, a lawless land controlled by the criminal class: Vietnamese warlords and European war-criminals. Den-Dhin-Chan Labor Camp is run by four such dangerous men. The worst prison in the land, it is here that an Irish, former-champion boxer Martin Tillman has made a name for himself fighting tournaments, on which wealthy criminals gamble in high stakes events. When Tillman is due for release, he just wants to return home, but the corrupt forces running the jail will do everything in their power to keep him locked down. When all that Tillman holds dear is taken away in a vicious act of violence, he is forced to confront the men responsible and take his revenge. The birth of a legend.

Our read · Savage Dog (2017) reads as a sombre, breathless, grounded action · drama · revenge entry — extreme in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of Savage Dog

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want raw brutal prison martial arts action with Scott Adkins throwing down in 1950s Indochina.

ends triumphantyou’ll be fine aftergrabs you earlygrips by minute 5attention 3/5breezes by
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upgraphic violencegore

Skip it tonightSkip if relentless fight violence or gritty period exploitation will ruin your night.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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