Blog

Introduction

Hello, fellow adventurers! Blaziker is back to talk about something very personal, and it is about a movie, a movie many people would consider to be generic, mediocre and some might say it was one of the worst movies of the year, given how uninteresting it is. I will admit, I agree. Only on the “uninteresting” part, I thought people hate Rock Dog more than expected.

However, this was a movie that opened up to a path of possibility, something that I had been wanting to do for a long time: writing my very own novel, more specifically a fanfiction novel series. It was also the movie that started my social media career to promote myself as well as the novel, starting with Instagram and Tumblr in 2018 and followed by Twitter in 2019. The flaws in this movie were the source of motivation for writing a better version of that movie.

Yes, to celebrate the movie’s 5th anniversary, it is time to talk about the 2017 Chinese animated movie, which somehow garnered a small fandom, “Rock Dog”.

A Brief About Rock Dog

For those who had already forgotten, Rock Dog is a 2017 animated movie (which came out in China the year before), and is loosely based on Chinese rock star Zheng Jun’s graphic novel “Tibetan Rock Dog”. It is about a village Mastiff who ventured into the big city to pursuit his dreams of becoming a rock star, something his father does not desire, revealed by him banning all forms of music in the village.

For a simple story that should theoretically be easy to execute, but unfortunately, I felt the many unfocused elements of the movie (and there were plenty) makes the story way more complicated than it should be, resulting in the story that was pretty mediocre. Paired with a slightly below-average animation and the resemblance to another, popular furry movie, and it resulted in Rock Dog being an underwhelming animated movie that most moviegoers pretty much forget.

Or did it?

For a time being, Rock Dog became pretty popular among the furry community, probably because Rock Dog, for a relatively low-budget foreign animated movie, is slightly above average. There were some decent fan-art of the characters as well some short fanfiction stories on various fanfiction websites. However, I did not decide to write the first book of my long-time fanfiction series “Mengcheng Dreaming” immediately upon Rock Dog’s release here in March 2017.

Rather, it stewed for a moment…

How Rock Dog Got Me Back to Writing

I will be frank to you, I dreaded to see Rock Dog, probably because of the amount of negative responses towards it when the first trailers came out. I joked to my friend before the screening on 9 March 2017 that I was walking to hell. It turns that Rock Dog wasn’t as bad as what I thought, in fact, I thought Rock Dog was pretty ok.

Before I knew it, my thoughts about improving this movie stewed in my head. For a while, I went on doing my business as an accountancy student in my local polytechnic, during which I also thought about the movie without realising it. It was also when I began writing some short stories and opened up an Instagram account to promote and share my short stories with my local community. Since young, I realised I was an exceptional writer, and wrote stories and non-fiction essays during my primary and secondary school days, both for academic purposes and for fun. I also tried out some blog writing, and I taught how I write blog posts on my own, writing about my personal experiences growing up in Singapore.

These continuous thoughts about how I could improve the movie escalated during my 3-month internship. I worked at a global semiconductor company as an accounts intern when, during one of my breaks, I suddenly had a thought, and it was burning through my brain. It was also when another thought hit my brain: what if I do something that I really wanted to write, something that I had missed doing in a long time?

I wrote an outline of a standalone, fix-it novel where I attempt to fix the many issues I had with Rock Dog, which I will summarise later. For the next few months, I spent my free time back at the polytechnic working on the plotline for the movie, while studying my accountancy course (like taxation, consolidated financial statements, business analytics and more accounting-related stuff). I really wanted to tap back into my childhood strength of writing and see where the road leads me to. Before long, it was October 2018 and, for the first time ever, I entered the National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) for the very first time. The title of that work?

“Rock Dog: The Retold Story”. Simple, but effective.

How I Attempted to Fix Rock Dog

In order to talk about how I fix Rock Dog, it is important to note that I made those fixes as my interpretation of how I would fix a big issue with the movie: the writing. It was all over the place for me, and the lack of cohesion and the overcomplicated plot is honestly a huge let-down, given its simple premise. However, it was more than the writing that I felt needed to be fixed, so I had crafted a plan to turn a box office bomb into a sensory experience based on my life growing up in Singapore.

Oh, and here is a spoiler warning:

Warning: The following will now discuss certain plot points within the Rock Dog movie, as well as the entire Mengcheng Dreaming series, not just Rock Dog: The Retold Story. You have been warned.

Enough talk. Let’s get through three particular elements I fixed in the movie:

The Story

Because writing all the fixes of this story would make this article too long, I will write about the specific elements of the movie and rationale for the change, apart from characters which I cover in a separate section:

The Original Movie	Rock Dog: The Retold Story	Reason for Change
The original Rock Dog movie is an 80-plus minute movie.	The book is more episodic (Based on a hypothesis of if I am writing it as a limited animated series), dividing sections into “episodes”, like a limited animated series.	This helps to reduce pacing issues where the movie’s pacing is too hectic, and providing more time for proper character and plot development.
The story takes place somewhere in China, in line with the original graphic novel “Tibetan Rock Dog”.	The story takes place in the fictional island nation of Mengguo in East Asia, specifically at Snow Mountain (Bodi’s home village) and the country’s capital, Mengcheng.	Creating this new fictional country would allow me to explore other places within it, especially with this story. This would be helpful when I expand the Mengcheng Dreaming series in future works.
The story more likely took place in around the late 80s to early 90s.	The story takes place during the late 2010s, specifically around 2016, where the original movie was released in China.	Modernising the plot would help in deciding ideas relevant to this timeline and slight quips, such as Bodi’s lack of understanding of technology.
There are some unnecessary side plots, such as Linnux kidnapping Angus by mistake and Bodi’s boxing match.	These side plots have been removed, and I replaced them with more sensible side plots, like Bodi’s young fanatic, Cody the Dunk Tank Cat (one of my first OCs), and Bodi’s time with Darma.	I wanted to focus more on Bodi’s path to rock star status, so I had put more emphasis on this main plot, while removing side plots that interfere with that main plotline.
There was a lack of focus on the music making elements, apart from the brilliant plot point of Bodi and Angus composing “Glorious”.	The book focuses much more on music creation, such as the newly formed Rock Dog band writing and composing songs, and performing them.	Considering this was all about Bodi pursuing his love for music, I wanted to focus more on the music, so I put more thought into the music. More on that when I get to the music in “Rock Dog: The Retold Story”.
There were few interactions between Bodi and either Khampa (his dad) or Fleetwood Yak (aka Uncle Fleetwood) in the movie.	I included more of such interactions, including a focus on Khampa holding Bodi back when he banned music in the village.	The character interactions allow to open up more side plotlines for future chapters, and it helps to empathise with Bodi’s position.

The Characters

Characters also play a part in making a great story, so when deciding on what I wanted to do with the characters, I put a lot of thought into how I wanted to develop them, so was what I did:

Bodi (Lead singer, Acoustic/Electric Guitar)

Some time after the release of “Rock Dog: The Retold Story”, I had a comment from the AO3 version of the book, asking “Why is Bodi acting out of character (OOC)?” Well, while the essence of Bodi remains similar compared to the movie, I made some extra changes.

When conceptualising how I would change Bodi’s characteristics, I still wanted to keep most of his traits the same. He is still a Tibetan mastiff, but I had added an implied trait that he has Savant Syndrome, which is a rare mental disorder common among those with autism. In fact, in the movie, Fleetwood Yak (or Uncle Fleetwood, as what Bodi calls him) mentioned about him having Savant Syndrome, and given how much I enjoyed the original Korean version of “The Good Doctor” about an Autistic pediatric surgeon with Savant Syndrome, I wanted to do my take.

Basically, Bodi is excellent at writing and composing songs better than the rest of Rock Dog, but when it comes to interacting with other animals outside of his village, he has some difficulty adapting to it. Plus, he uses and can only understand slightly simpler wording due to him being home-schooled for most of his life, unlike the rest of the band, so his command of language is weaker. Finally, he is the most naïve of the band, as he does not have the street smarts at first. With that said, he was able to adapt to his surroundings on a fly once he gets the hang of it, kind of like me in real life. Also, while his traditional clothing in the movie is his main outfit, Bodi also wore more modern clothing once he adapts to his new life in Mengcheng.

Finally, there is a question of Bodi using his “Fire”, which is a simple name to describe the fire power he inherited from his dad. While I did not dive deep into his origins, I will say that Bodi amplifies his powers with his guitar, just like in the movie. However, as he grew stronger, and he became more confident in his music, Bodi’s power grew, and he can use it to either hype up his audience and the band, or use it as a weapon to quell his enemies.

The Rest of Rock Dog

Given the title of the movie is “Rock Dog”, perhaps that would also be the title of Bodi’s band, and yes, in the original movie, there was no name for the band.

Besides Bodi as the lead singer, the band also consists of:

Angus (Electric Guitar)

I kept most of Angus’s characteristics intact, given how much I really enjoyed the movie’s portrayal of Angus in the movie. However, I added some additional developments for this old rock star.

In “Rock Dog: The Retold Story”, I added some additional traits (or what some might say, ‘head cannons’) for him.

Angus was from Liverpool (the spiritual home of The Beatles), and used to be a lead singer of a former well-known band (The Top Cats) for around 25 years, until the band breaks up after decades of performing. He moved to Mengcheng and retire there because it was much cheaper to buy a mansion there compared to in the United Kingdom.

Angus is a bit of an alcoholic, which would be evident in later Mengcheng Dreaming books. Like any proper Englishman, he prefers his beer warm, and had occasion of drunken rage if he drinks too much. However, he never smokes.

Angus had never left the mansion for around two months before Bodi trespass the mansion. He always kept company with Ozzy, the robot butler he bought from an online e-commerce website. The band only hired servants after the formation of Rock Dog, so Angus tends to the mansion grounds as much as he could before then.

Darma (Bass Guitar)

Darma plays as Bodi’s girlfriend and a source of emotional support. The female fox helps to acquaint Bodi to the modern world (which differs greatly from his village life), and her parents are rich real estate agents from Singapore. Naturally, she is a Singapore citizen with a student pass in Mengguo, and went to the same high school as Grem.

As for the love relationship between her and Bodi, I wanted that to stew for a while so that the love relationship was a bit more believable. She, too, is a talented songwriter, but not as good as Bodi, and was passionate about music as much as Bodi and Angus. She grew up as a Linkin Park and Blink 182 fan, and still has a Discman from her childhood days.

Despite being the only female member of Rock Dog, Darma holds her own against the other male members, providing support as the band’s bass guitarist and the translator for Rock Dog’s Mandarin songs (because of her high grades in English and Mandarin languages in the national exam).

It also helped that her cousin is real-life singer Benjamin Kheng (and lead singer of The Sam Willows), so she often has a friendly rivalry with her more gifted cousin. She has a fiery attitude and enjoys a good challenge if there was a need to.

Gremur “Grem” (Drums)

The India-born drummer goat did not get enough spotlight in the movie, but I had given him some more moments as a free-spirited, sometimes dumb drummer who fades into the spotlight, but is a naturally gifted drummer. I had modelled him after Ethan, the drummer from the Italian band Maneskin who doesn’t get as much limelight as the other band mates, but is one hell of a drummer.

Grem is also the laziest member of the band, sleeping the most out of the band, and he even sleeps on the band’s bus on the way to concerts. However, once Trey joins in (more on him later), Trey tries to get Grem to slim down to shape and adopt to a healthy lifestyle, a contrast to his junk-food eating habits. However, he makes up for it by being a pretty decent home chef, helping to cook meals for Bodi and Darma during their temporary time at their apartment, before moving to the Rock Dog mansion.

Grem has five siblings, all of them being in India for their education. Grem was the eldest child and studied in Mengcheng thanks to his parents’ sponsorship and was Darma’s first friend. He is also the least intelligent member of the band (even less than Bodi, who does not have proper education), as he gets confused very often over certain stuff. However, he always remits money back to his family in India every month, showcasing his filial piety, and remits more now that he has a salary of a rockstar from the band’s label.

Trey (Electric Guitar)

Yes, unlike in the movie, Australia-born cheetah Trey did join Rock Dog as the secondary electric guitar player because I thought re-writing Trey as a show-off who happens to be a big Top Cats fans (particularly Angus) would be fun.

While I still kept Trey challenging Bodi to a riff-off in the movie, this version was a riff-off to a DragonForce song (which suits Trey since, just like Angus, he is a tour de force with the electric guitar). He was in a trio with Darma and Grem before the formation of Rock Dog, where he acts like a jerk to Darma and Grem, and enjoys showing off with everyone at Rock-and-Roll Park.

However, when Bodi first entered the park and found himself in the riff-off with Trey, Trey found some competition for the first time with Bodi being able to keep up with Trey. For the rematch, Bodi defeated Trey handily, but he offered the cheetah an opportunity to join Rock Dog, which, of course, the cheetah could not take ‘no’ for an answer.

Trey’s attitude softened once he joined Rock Dog, and became a well-mannered showman who sometimes does guitar solos of his own. In fact, Trey could keep with Angus’s guitar-playing level at such a short notice, sometimes, he could out-strummed Bodi if he wished to. Thankfully, Trey kept his distance and allowed Bodi to shine as the band’s lead.

Trey is also the most fit member of the band, spending the most amount of his free time at the gym inside Rock Dog’s mansion (owned by Angus), and also getting Grem into shape as his personal trainer. While he may show off at times, Trey made substantial attempts to keep his attitude in check.

Ian (Rock Dog’s Agent)

Rock Dog’s agent and co-owner of his music label “Jungle Law Records”, a small but thriving independent music label in Mengcheng, Ian is also Angus’s old friend who also moved to Mengcheng at around the same time as Angus. Rock Dog is the label’s most popular musician by album sales.

Ian helps to record Rock Dog’s songs (whether inside the studio or in the Rock Dog mansion, where it has a basement music studio), and helps organise Rock Dog’s concerts and their social media accounts. In short, Ian is technically part of the Rock Dog band because of its popularity, and there were other agents in the label that helped with other musicians, anyway.

Other Characters

There are also other characters that played a part in the story, including:

Linnux, Riff and Skozz

I still had not forgotten about the main villains of the story. Compared to the movie, I took away some focus on Linnux and his all-alpha, all-male wolves “Hei Lang” gang, but they still are an integral role in the story.

Linnux, the leader of the gang, already has a rap sheet of gang violence, illegal moneylending, extortion, bribery and drug trafficking, among the crimes his gang committed. Being based in the docklands at an industrial part of Mengcheng, he is also a cannibal, which is even worse than murder. He long desired for lamb, and when his father failed to invade the village at Snow Mountain long ago, it was his sacred duty to exact his revenge, and Bodi would be the key to this.

Riff, Linnux’’s right-hand wolf, is probably the smartest and most fit member of the team besides Linnux. While Riff is very reliable, he is only held back by his height (slightly short compared to the other wolves), but do not mock his height, you will regret it.

Skozz is Riff’s partner and while he may not be as smart or as fit, but he is capable enough. However, he had difficultly speaking, due to a stutter since his birth, so he pretended to be mute (which explains why he was not voiced in the movie). Skozz only communicated to Riff vocally in private, but whenever he has to communicate, he used sign language to hide his stutter.

Bodi’s Family (Khampa (Bodi’s dad), Fleetwood Yak and Karli (Bodi’s mum))

The story also puts focus on Bodi’s family on Snow Mountain, and their influence on Bodi.

Khampa, Bodi’s dad, is the chief protector of the village in Snow Mountain who also has “The Fire” inherited from his ancestors. After the failed wolf invasion before the story began, he had to train Bodi to succeed him as the village’s protector, so he sent Karli away to Singapore (to protect her), and ban music from the village, which was what excites Bodi the most. Khampa home-schooled and trained Bodi to use his “Fire” since Bodi’s childhood. By the time Bodi re-discovered his love for music and changed course to be a rock star, Khampa lacked any understanding of what his son really loves, so after that test, Khampa decided to give Bodi one chance to be a rock star.

As for Fleetwood Yak (aka Uncle Fleetwood), he is also a core supporting character, and despite not being a Tibetan Mastiff, he was spiritually part of Bodi’s family. He took care of the lamb community, who lived together with Bodi’s family since they first occupied the mountain centuries ago. As Khampa’s companion and Bodi’s caring uncle, Uncle Fleetwood offered them sage advice time to time, such as convincing Khampa to give Bodi a chance to travel to Mengcheng and chase his rock star dreams, and provide Bodi with as much as support as he need in his journey. Even better, Uncle Fleetwood helped to mend Bodi’s old guitar, which was laying in dust for some time.

However, there is the case of Bodi’s mum, Karli, who is not part of the movie, and only debut in the second half of my story. Karli works as a kindergarten teacher in Singapore, safe from any harm from Linnux’s Hei Lang gang. She communicates with Khampa regularly, but not to Bodi, since she does not want her son to worry about her. Also, because of that, she rarely returns to Mengguo to visit the village. These were why I did not feature her until about close to the ending of Rock Dog: The Retold Story, where she takes the opportunity to reunite with Bodi at the Rock Dog mansion, after seeing the rise in his band’s popularity.

Cody the Dunk Tank Cat

My original character (OC) from a previous unpublished stories, Cody, is a teenage cat that, together with his sister Cecilia, owns a successful roving dunk tank stand, despite him being, well, a cat. However, despite being a great dunk tank clown, he is also one of the first fans of Rock Dog, when they started to get more stardom.

Cody is business-savvy, and can market his dunk tank stand at a relatively young age, but he also went head over heels whenever Rock Dog performs, whether for free at Rock and Roll Park, or at the small festivals and standalone concerts Rock Dog performs, which could also explain the collection of Rock Dog memorabilia in his bedroom.

The Music

Of course, this being Rock Dog, the music plays an important in the book. While the original Rock Dog soundtrack is pretty decent (not to mention “Glorious” being an insane earworm for the next few months), it lacks in the rock songs.

For starters, I titled each chapter after one of the songs I used in that chapter (which I did before Netflix anime series “Carole and Tuesday” did, but since I loved that anime, I will allow it) and each chapter would have around one to four songs (of which I added lyrics for some of the important songs). However, it was not just about the quantity of the songs, it is also about the quality and variety.

In terms of the songs I chose, I looked back at my obscure taste of music, and took inspiration to pay tribute to the lesser known musicians (although there were some from the well-known singers too just for familiarity). This is especially because of my love for the Eurovision Song Contest, so of course, a good amount of Eurovision, as well as Eurovision national selection tracks, are in the soundtrack.

As for the music style Rock Dog goes for, I had chosen a sub-genre of rock that I am very familiar with: Asian rock, more specifically Mando-rock and J-Rock. Drawing inspiration from Asian bands like Taiwan’s Mayday and Japan’s One Ok Rock, the songs they played are high-energy and inspirational, which complement Bodi’s “Fire”, which gains power depending on both the song and the energy Bodi puts in into each performance.

Oh, and for Rock Dog’s debut EP, here are the five songs in their EP:

“All We Are” by State of Drama

“Glorious” by Adam Friedman (which is also the main theme song of Rock Dog)

“Something Better” by Softengine

“Hearts Align” by Dismissed

“To the End” by Yohio

Conclusion

That was a lot to take in, but the point is, whenever I watched an animated movie that was overall disappointing, I would often think about how I can make this animated movie better, and Rock Dog is a fine example of my thought process.

“Rock Dog: The Retold Story” was the idea that I turned to an actual eBook, and also a success on both Wattpad and AO3. I was planning to write a standalone novel, but after realising its success and having more ideas on expanding the story, I turned it into an 8-book series called “Mengcheng Dreaming”, consisting of 4 full novels and 4 short spin-offs. You can check out the series below:

Number	Title	Book Links
1	Rock Dog: The Retold Story	Wattpad AO3
2	Coming Home: A Rock Dog Short Story	Wattpad AO3
3	Rock Dog: The Songs We Sing	Wattpad AO3
4	Looking Back: An Arctic Dogs Collection	Wattpad AO3
5	Arctic Dogs: Metamorphosis	Wattpad AO3
6	Be the Light: The Special Rock Dog Lockdown Concert	Wattpad AO3
7	Zitti e Buoni: A Rock Dog-Spycies Story	Wattpad AO3
8	Rock Dog: The Final Call	Wattpad AO3

Soundtrack links to the entire series:

• Main Series (Spotify)
• Main Series (YouTube)
• Camp Nanowrimo Spin-Off Series (Spotify)
• Camp Nanowrimo Spin-Off Series (YouTube)

This being the last post of the year, I wish my readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I will see you next year for more animated movie adventures, and until next time, k thanks bye!