The Film: 4/5

Before he became well-known for making lightweight Hollywood genre flicks like Cocktail, Species, and Dante’s Peak, Australian filmmaker Roger Donaldson ventured to rural New Zealand with a team of gifted daredevils to make the first 35mm feature ever produced in that country. He tapped Ian Mune and Arthur Baysting to adapt C.K. Stead’s novel Smith’s Dream into a screenplay that formed the foundation for 1977’s Sleeping Dogs.

Donaldson cast a young Sam Neill in what turned out to be the actor’s first lead role in a feature film. Neill is unsurprisingly powerful as Smith, an ordinary man who walks away from his crumbling marriage to the unhappy Gloria (Nevan Rowe) and flees in the countryside, where a lonely island catches his eye. He finds out the name of this beautiful stretch of land is Gut Island and it is owned by the Maoris. Smith convinces them to let him rent the island so he can live out the rest of his days in peace and solitude. The owners agree to his request and they even give him a dog for company.

Smith’s ideal existence in a pastoral paradise is brought to a sudden halt when he is arrested by the militarized authorities on suspicion of being a member of the revolutionary group violently opposing New Zealand’s growing totalitarian government. One thing leads to another, and before you know it, Smith is a fugitive from the law working at a motel to make ends meet. While he attempts to find peace in exile, the government makes him into one of the faces of the left-wing militant movement and his underground celebrity rises. Soon he finds himself approached by the real revolutionaries, including his wife’s lover Bullen (Ian Mune), to join their cause. Realizing that the government will make an example out of him if he tries turning himself in, Smith reluctantly takes up arms to become the rebel soldier he never wanted to be.

Intelligent and uncompromising in its approach to thematic material that reminds relevant to this day, Sleeping Dogs is a gripping political thriller that Donaldson directs with clenched-fist anger and authority. The Mune/Baysting script charts a convincing course for Smith’s journey from everyman looking for an escape from a decaying world to unlikely revolutionary and fugitive and pragmatically places it in a near-future setting where the rise of fascist governments happens more than people would like to believe. Propaganda posters litter the landscape and television screens beam forth to the masses the grandfatherly proclamations of a prime minister using his media savvy to comfortably transition the country from democracy to police state, while Smith is arrested and imprisoned under Kafka-esque circumstances by his old school mate Jesperson (Clyde Scott) – the incident that sets him on the road to insurgency.

The documentary-style realism favored by Donaldson bleeds into the film, keeping the story grounded and never appearing far-fetched, but his cinematographer Michael Seresin (War for the Planet of the Apes) manages to find quiet beauty among the bucolic vistas on and around New Zealand’s Coromandel Peninsula that provide a haunting backdrop for the shocking bursts of bloody violence that hasten Smith’s descent into armed anti-government rebellion. Neill makes for a perfectly flawed protagonist, his every action given a convincing motivation, and though his performance is central to the film’s success, he is supported every step of the way by brief but important turns from Mune, Rowe, Ian Watkin (Peter Jackson’s Braindead), and the legendary Warren Oates as an American army colonel brought in to head up the government’s anti-resistance campaign.

Audio/Video: 4/5

Sleeping Dogs is presented on Blu-ray from Arrow Video as part of their “Arrow Academy” line-up of independent art films from around the world. The 1080p transfer is presented in the film’s original 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio and is sourced from a recent digital restoration of original film elements overseen by the New Zealand Film Commission. The film looks superb in HD as the picture boasts a gorgeously earthy color scheme of vibrant greens and warm browns, visible black levels for the night scenes, bolstered texture in the interior and exterior sets, and close-up details so crisp and sharp you can see every wrinkle on Oates’ iconic mug.

In addition to an uncompressed English PCM 2.0 stereo track that solidly recreates the original theatrical mono sound mix, this release also comes with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 offering a much clearer and less distorted presentation with spacious arrangements of the various mix components. Although either track will suit your listening needs depending on your speaker set-up, dialogue and ambient effects mingle with luxurious effect and the score and original country songs composed for the film are given plenty of room and balanced volume to play. English subtitles have also been provided.

Extras: 4/5

There are some terrific supplements on this disc, most of which were ported over from Anchor Bay Entertainment’s 2004 DVD release (as part of The Roger Donaldson Collection, which also includes the director’s 1981 drama Smash Palace, another upcoming Blu-ray from Arrow). The selection starts off strong with an audio commentary that brings together Donaldson, Neill, and Mune for a warm, revealing look back at how they made this film and some reflection on its impact on their careers and New Zealand cinema in general.

Next, we have two separate documentaries both entitled The Making of Sleeping Dogs. The first (29 minutes) was produced at the time of the film’s release and features vintage interviews with Donaldson and his cast and crew and a great deal of behind-the-scenes footage. You can find most of this material beefing up the second doc (68 minutes), a retrospective effort produced for the Anchor Bay disc that finds the main players touring the original filming locations, sharing production anecdotes, talking in greater detail about how the project came about, and more. Additional members of the cast and crew also make the cut with their own fond memories. The original theatrical trailer (2 minutes) wraps things up here.

Arrow has also thrown in a reversible cover art sleeve and a collector’s booklet featuring an essay about Sleeping Dogs and the birth of the New Zealand cinema’s New Wave and a reproduction of the 1977 press kit.

Overall: 4/5

Arrow Video’s Blu-ray release of Sleeping Dogs offers great audio/video quality and enjoyably substantial bonus features for Roger Donaldson’s riveting political thriller, anchored by a remarkable breakthrough performance from Sam Neill. Highly recommended.