Lu Xuechang's (The Making Of Steel) excellent little film mixes satire, droll comedy and drama seamlessly, starting out with a very hard white on black opening crawl about the dog permit law. Hard shadows in the defined cinematography suggests we're in a different genre but centering it around the "abduction" of the titular dog, Lu is in a very clever way setting up a ticking clock movie structure. But the setting and our main hero is not going to kill people and set off explosions during the course of the day but instead Lao Er takes a trip through urban Beijing while also having to confront his own family life. Cala is as it turns out something Lao Er can hide behind, his only real companion in a scarred family unit. Staying true to Mainland cinema-esque techniques, very little is shoved in our face and we're asked to grasp ourselves any low-key comedy and character weight. What a joyous task it is to do so! Ge You centers the film marvelously, being a pitch perfect image for the journey of Lao Er. A journey that director Lu isn't interested to fully follow through. There are certain tasks that are solved after 100 minutes but life doesn't get solved in that short amount of time. Despite the cheat that it may sound like, it's highly encouraging and enlightening cinema.