Hachi: A Dogs Tale

At Wahnfried in McGregor

On Friday 5th at 5pm we have our last Richard Gere film, HACHI: A DOG’S TALE (1h30mins). Bring your tissues!

The movie was based on the real Japanese Akita dog Hachiko, who was born in Ōdate, Japan, in 1923. After the death of his owner, Ueno Hidesaburō in 1925, Hachiko returned to the Shibuya train station the next day and every day after that for the next nine years until he died in March 1935. A bronze statue of Hachiko is in front of the Shibuya train station in his honour, in the spot where he waited. Hachikō is known in Japanese as chūken Hachikō (忠犬ハチ公) "faithful dog Hachikō", hachi meaning "eight" and kō meaning "affection." The film ends with a text panel summarizing the story of the real Hachiko, a photo of the dog and a shot of the bronze statue.

Animal trainer Mark Harden and his team trained the three Akitas—Layla, Chico and Forrest—who played the role of Hachi in the movie. Harden adopted Chico after the movie was completed. Trainer David Allsberry adopted Layla after the shoot. Discussing the challenging process of getting to know his canine co-stars, Richard Gere said, "a certain amount of anxiety, of would we get along? They cannot be bought." But after about three days, he said, "One of the dogs came over and put her head right on my lap. And that was a big moment - I was accepted in the pack."

A schoolboy reports on his hero: Hachiko, his grandfather's dog. In a flashback, a puppy at a Japanese monastery is crated and sent to the US. The crate's tag tears, and when the puppy pushes his way out of the crate at the train station of a small Rhode Island town, Parker Wilson, a professor of music in nearby Providence, takes the dog home for the night. His wife isn't happy about it, but after failing to find the owner, she lets the dog stay. A Japanese friend reads the dog's tag - "Hachiko" or "Eight," a lucky number. Parker can't teach the dog to fetch, but the friend explains that the dog will forge a different kind of loyalty. Tragedy tests that loyalty.

‘’ Well what can i say. I'm a guy I don't cry about movies i know its fake but i got to say this one caught me by surprise even though I had watched the trailer and read a few reviews already. by the end of the movie I was in tears absolutely broken down crying my eyes out. and saying that i probably haven't shed a tear in about 8 years for anything but i love dogs and this is the most amazing story I've ever seen this is probably the best movie I've seen in about 10 years and I have seen almost everything.
As u can probably tell I would advise everyone to see this and stop and think for a moment if we all cared for each other like we know we should like this movie teaches us wouldn't the world be a better place?’’ IMDb reviewer