Animal Insting

Remember when I wrote in my blog about that Japanese dog named Hachiko who waited for his dad at the train station for years even after his dad died and never came home on the train anymore?  And remember that I told you they were making a movie about this story, except that it's set in America, and it has Richard Gere and Joan Allen in it?

Well, guess what!  The movie is out and now you can see it!  But they didn't put the movie in theaters.  Instead, they just put it on DVDs, and that's really better, I think, because dogs aren't allowed in movie theaters unless they are service dogs.  But dogs can watch movies at home on DVD, and cats can, too, if they are interested.  So everybody can watch this movie.

Mom bought us a copy from Amazon.com, which is where we do some of our best shopping.  And the movie is called Hachi: A Dog's Tale.  We watched it Saturday night, and it didn't take too long because the movie is only 93 minutes long.  And then there is a little feature thingy about how they made the movie, but that is only about 15 minutes long.

Anyway, we thought the movie was good, but it was sad, which we knew it would be because we already knew the story of Hachiko.  Mom doesn't usually cry during movies, but she started crying in this movie, and she cried like all the way through the last third of it.  She had to keep blowing her nose, which was distracting for the rest of us who were trying to watch the movie.

I didn't cry because dogs can't really cry.  At least, we can't cry with tears, like people cry.  We just whimper and whine, which I didn't do during the movie.  After we finished watching it, I looked at some reviews on the internet, and I found that most of the reviewers either really, really liked this movie or else they hated it.

Everyone said it might make you cry, but the reviewers who hated the movie said that they wanted to cry because they were "bored to tears."  I think these reviewers are the kind of people who probably only like movies with lots of action and chase scenes and stuff blowing up all the time.  I don't like that kind of movie because it is too scary.  I like to see a nice, simple story about a dog's devotion to the human he loved.  That is the best kind of story of all, in my opinion, and if you agree, you should go out right now and rent or buy Hachi: A Dog's Tale and watch it.  Oh, and be sure you have plenty of tissues handy!