PETA accuses Chinese director Ning Hao of dog abuse on set of his upcoming film
In whistleblower footage, a live dog is trapped inside a cage, twirled around, and launched into water
A video has been published online which is alleged to show a dog being tortured and abused on the set of the upcoming film “Crazy Alien” from Chinese director Ning Hao.
PETA says that it received the grainy footage from a whistleblower working on the movie who was horrified by the crew’s cruel treatment of the dog.
The 49-second long clip appears to show a live dog trapped inside a steel cage that is suspended some 20 feet in the air. The scene starts and the cage is made to spin around wildly before coming crashing down into what is described as a “frigid, fast-flowing river.”
According to PETA, the whistleblower said that the dog, a young German shepherd, was subject to this kind of abuse in multiple scenes for multiple takes without any breaks.
“On November 28th, 2017, I witnessed first hand one of the worst animal cruelty acts I have ever seen,” the whistleblower was quoted as saying, while also describing how the dog was intentionally tormented into a “frenzy” in order to get the animal to bark as loudly as possible.
Here’s how PETA says the whistleblower described the scene shown in the leaked video:
The next shot was at the river’s edge where the dog was put back into his cage and tormented into a frenzy once again. This time … the cage … was hoisted 20 ft. and was flung while spinning out of control towards the river. … [T]he cage was completely submerged with the dog in it landing in a 10 mph current. After 5–8 seconds, the director yelled out “cut.” … A final decision was made by the director to shoot a second identical take. I could not believe my eyes.
In its statement on the alleged incident, PETA wonders why a film with the word “alien” in the title could not use special effects for the scene and instead chose to torture a dog. The animal rights organization then answers its own question:
“Why was this animal subjected to fear and suffering? Because when it comes to entertainment, animals are viewed as nothing more than props, and there are no laws protecting them on film sets in China.”
“Crazy Alien” is the third installment in Ning’s black comedy trilogy, which began with 2006’s “Crazy Stone,” the film that made him famous, and continued with 2009’s “Crazy Racer.” The upcoming film stars Matthew Morrison, an American actor best known for his role in “Glee.”
In its statement, PETA called on Morrison to donate his salary for the movie to animal protection charities in China.
It’s not clear if Morrison will go that far, but he did tweet last week that he had called the film’s producers to express his “outrage.”
