Dog War is a horror movie. Though not in the MPAA ratings sense. It's much, much worse. Because every bit of this story is true, and the horror has been going on for decades, in multiple countries across the globe.
Imagine hanging upside down by your legs while your blood is drained from your body and a blowtorch is slowly drawn up and down your skin. Or having hair scraped off your skin while still alive, then tossed into a pot and boiled alive. Perhaps forced to live in your own feces for your entire life, surviving on garbage mixed with shredded octopus and the boiled remains of your fellow beings. Taken from your homes and beaten repeatedly with clubs while someone stands with their foot on your head. And being forced to watch this happen to others of your tribe every day, knowing full well that you might be next.
Sounds horrible, doesn't it? Well, I'm talking about the dog meat trade, which continues to exist throughout multiple Asian countries. Yes, cats are also unwilling victims, but Dog War concentrates on the dogs of Korea and the continual lies spread by breeders, thieves and hawkers of slaughtered dogs in backstreet alleys and high-end restaurants. The lie that this is 'cultural', and that Westerners 'don't understand' and should 'mind their own business'. A Korean Professor Emeritus of Food and Nutrition knows the conditions of the animals and still sees nothing wrong with the trade.
Meet K9 Global Rescue (k9globalrescue.org), the heroes of Dog War. Since 2010, it's these combat veterans mission to shut down as many dealers of death as they can. "We will do whatever is necessary to save as many dogs as possible", says Jon Barocas, of K9GR. No, they can't save every animal they find. But they can, and do, pull to safety the dogs they come upon in these death camps who are 
easily identified as stolen animals. St. Bernards, Huskies, Chows, Bassets, Great Danes, a Cane Corso and even an English Spaniel are seen within the 'slop houses', as the men call the dilapidated cages where the animals survive. Some still have their collars from when they were either sold into slavery or stolen from families, famiiles who may still look for their lost pets. Dog War is their story of the war to stop the dogmeat trade.
We follow K9GR through the maze of lax regulations in South Korea on a visit to their Department of Agriculture. K9GR shows them clear aerial photographs of a rice field adjacent to a slop house. You can see the feces from the slaughterhouse being washed into the lake water. The same water that is used to irrigate the adjacent rice paddies. Using 
a drone, high above many of such facilities, K9GR globally expose the health hazards. And yet, many times the authorities are more bothered by the idea that the inspectors are foreigners and involving themselves in something that the Koreans believe is none of the American's business.
Are they deeply concerned about the feces-water in the rice paddies? It does not appear to be so. Are they going to do anything about taking some sort of action against the slaughterhouse, just to stop the health hazard to their citizens, perhaps even to the world, because who knows where that rice is being sent when harvested. Again, that answer appears doubtful. K9GR know there are no laws in this country regarding how to slaughter a dog, so they believed that bringing this obvious environmental hazard to the attention of the very people who are assigned to do something about it would create some sort of governmental response. But they leave the Department not knowing if they were successful in their mission.
If you're still not disgusted, there's something seriously wrong with you. Perhaps watching a woman create what she deems to be a 'tasty dog meat soup' will be the thing to turn your stomach.
The K9GR men clearly state that if vendors weren't so embarrassed by their business, they wouldn't hide it behind cloaked fences, in squalor, threatening extreme bodily harm and even death to those who want to expose this cruel and 
filthy occupation. Sellers wouldn't chase people from their wet meat market booths. Businesses wouldn't be concerned about people filming their wares - decapitated, skinned dog's bodies laying side-by-side. A showcase of dog heads, the canine grimace of pain still acutely visible, even though their skin and eyes are long gone.
The irony here is that at least one of the dogmeat factory owners are themselves dog owners. The head of the National Dog Meat Association 'distinguishes' between house dogs and 'eating kennels'. He states 'house dogs are smarter, know where to pee. Food dogs know nothing about that'. Of course they don't. You bred them to eat them. Even the guard dogs know their time is limited. When they're too old to do the job, they become dog soup. Unless they were stolen, the dogs have never known anything else. What's remarkable about the stupidity of that comment is that every dog at the slaughterhouse welcomes a human touch. The Association manager states "they were raised with love." Even after all they've seen, all they've heard, they still wag their tails as K9GR approach.
It's heartbreaking. It's revolting. More than 20,000 farms exist. More than 3 MILLION DOGS are killed per year. You can hear the dogs scream as they're being slaughterd, as the men walk the streets of the markets.
Dog War is such an important film because there are people, right now, in those countries, who are affecting change. Who are protesting to force the markets close , who want to shut down Boknal, the annual 'celebration' where restaurants sell Bosintang, the dogmeat soup, believing the nonsense that it's good for their erections. Koreans have become embarrassed by the actions of some of their countrymen. People like my friend, Nami Kim, who appears in Dog War, who, for years, has worked to convince dogmeat farmers to sell or close their facilities, and provided them with the tools to grow sellable crops rather than dogs. Nami has many dogs at her rescue, dogs who are traumatized, who hide, because they've "seen too much".
Director Andrew Abrams takes us inside an upscale restaurant with a vendor who is giving an extra-special customer something from a refrigerator ... the penis of a dog that was forced to have sex with another dog. Said penis was cut off right in the middle of copulation for the 'added sexual value'. Imagine that. How special that customer must feel. Would you feel bad if he choked on it, right on camera? I would not. If you think I am angry, you don't know the half of it. Korean nationals themselves call this trade 'shameful and sad'. A member of the National Assembly admits that the dogmeat trade is not, in fact, 'cultural' to Korea. Member Pyo Chang-won states "bad things cannot be a part of culture."
However, change cannot come by force. As Mark Foster, an animal rights activist in Korea states, 'Political solutions are needed'. After some successes and some failures, all the vets want to do, at the close of Dog War, is go home to their families .... and their dogs. To consider their next mission. The film is not for the fainthearted. But the only way to stop the markets from existing is for documentaries like this to continue to raise awareness. It's well made, it's painful, and, while you cry, understand that the way forward is changing one city, one country at a time.
Lisa Blanck is the Associate Editor / Movie Reviewer for In Focus-Magazine.com and is a member of the Critics Association of Central Florida. Her background includes 30+ years of digital editing for NBC and CBS News affiliates. She also edits national promotional spots for Matter Of Fact, the #1 nationally syndicated news & information program. For 30+ years she has covered the Florida Film Festival & the World Peace Film Festival, and has additional award-winning experience in advertising, marketing, promotions and live special events with MTV Networks.
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