\n\tA woman who loses custody of the dog she and her ex-boyfriend brought up together decides to snatch him back in \u201cDog Fight,\u201d a dark comedy from actor-director Ryu Hyunkyung (\u201cDon\u2019t Go Back\u201d). <\/p>\n
\n\tThe project is part of the Asian Project Market<\/a>, which runs within the Busan International Film Festival<\/a>\u2019s Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM).<\/p>\n \n\tMinjeong and Seungil split after eight years together, but the law hands their dog Ppoppo to him, leaving her a visit every other week that he rarely allows. When Seungil says the visits are over for good, Minjeong grabs Ppoppo on impulse and hides out at a friend\u2019s place, where her joy soon tips into obsession. Then Ppoppo vanishes and Seungil says the dog is dead. Minjeong is crushed until she learns Ppoppo is still alive, and a three-way war for the dog breaks out. Ryu, who writes and directs, also stars.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201c\u2018Dog Fight\u2019 is a fight over a dog, but in the end it is a film about people,\u201d Ryu says. Through the exes\u2019 battle, she examines the possessiveness that passes for love.<\/p>\n \n\tThe law treats a dog that has shared eight years of someone\u2019s life as property, Ryu notes, and the years spent raising it as possession. Seungil wants to own Ppoppo through paperwork. Minjeong calls herself the dog\u2019s mom and wants to merge with him. Donghyun, a younger friend, makes Minjeong\u2019s decisions for her with the best of intentions. \u201cAll three hold on to someone else in the name of doing what\u2019s best for them,\u201d she says. \u201cNo one can be anyone\u2019s owner. Somewhere between staying together and letting go, I wanted this film to ask what love is.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRyu sees the new project as the third in a loose run of films she has written and made herself. \u201cDon\u2019t Go Back\u201d captured the moment before love starts, and \u201cOld Boy,\u201d a working title she is now shooting, follows two people through years spent together. \u201cDog Fight\u201d picks up after the breakup. In front of the small creature they shared, Ryu says, people get surprisingly earnest, which turns them comic and sometimes scary, and she wanted to draw out both the laughs and the unease.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cOld Boy\u201d is roughly 80% shot. Ryu will complete it and its post-production before moving to \u201cDog Fight,\u201d whose first draft is finished and now being reworked one scene and one line at a time.<\/p>\n