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| "Homeless dog can only pray for a miracle." courtesy of mingpao.com |
Last year when TWELVE NIGHTS was released in Taiwan, it already led to an enormous response. This April this film finally arrives in Hong Kong. When I provided my voice to the Cantonese trailer, I already knew that, like many people who love animals in Hong Kong, my blood would boil again very soon because of how truly shocking TWELVE NIGHTS is!
This documentary is about the final 12 nights of life after stray animals are taken to the shelters. The film has no actor, no script, just dogs that are waiting for death and their actual situations. The situation is poor and pitiful, which is also the fate of shelter dogs. The film's tone as expected is heavy, but I still feel that no matter you love dogs or not, you should watch this film because TWELVE NIGHTS is actually about the value and the dignity of life. When a perfectly good dog, after being taken to the shelter, gradually loses its life and dignity, I am the most saddened. I am saddened because they have no choice, watching their companions get mad, sick, separated from their offspring, euthanized, to them being the one getting mad, sick, separated from offspring, euthanized......they can only pray for a miracle, pray that their owners would only show up late and not never; or any pair of legs that passes by their cages would please stop and take a look at them, take away them and their friends......of course everything is just empty thought, most shelter dogs can only take their only dream, close their eyes and go to Heaven.
In the film a dog named Tat Mor makes my heart ache the most. Originally it keeps silent, even when together with other dogs in a cage it stays still. Until the 9th day when one of its companions die, it just keeps shivering in a corner with eyes full of fear. Later it climbs onto the net with all four limbs and howls out of control with all of its energy out of the cage. It wants to immediately escape from this hell on earth and it is hard to watch. In addition a mother dog is separated from its offspring as soon as they are born. It does not even have the right to feed its children. Separated from them, it can only try to listen its offsprings' cries from afar in the silent night to sense their existence. They have no choice, their fate of twelve night countdown starts from the moment that they are taken to the shelter.
After watching this film, I could not be myself for awhile. I kept mourning for those short lives with my husband and our adopted mixed breed dog Luna. I have been to some local shelters to adopt animals before, unfortunately I was limited by what I could do. Although I really wanted to, I could not possible take all the animals away. In the end only one could go home with me. The looks from the other dogs was hard for me to take, the helplessness of them telling you something but there was nothing you could do. I believe that euthanasia is not the only way, we definitely have better methods. Only when people keep abandoning their pets, the number of the homeless grows and grows. When the burden on society is too much, in the end it still returns to euthanasia. Only by maintaining the "adoption not abandonment" social trend can we effectively resolve the severe problem of abandoned animals with balance. In the end, no one has the right to harm or abandon any life.
Actually everything lies with how you choose. When you accept and leave a relationship, do you humanely face your responsibility or numbly do what is convenient?
Watch TWELVE NIGHTS, you would know life anew.
- GIGI LEUNG WING KEI
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