Today on ZDF: "Alpha – who tames the wolf" – friends for life

German free TV premiere on December 20 at 10:15 pm on ZDF: “Alpha – Who Tames the Wolf”.

Although the human being is often a wolf to the dog, the four-legged friends are not only extremely tolerant of us, but are actually looking for our love and recognition. The author of these lines knows what he is writing about, as he has lived with a Siberian-wolfhound-husky mix named Felix for seven years.

A related Czechoslovakian wolf dog, which originated from the cross between the German shepherd dog and the Carpathian wolf, plays the main role in “Alpha – Who Tames the Wolf” (USA 2018), a visually stunning epic of mythological power that penetrates to the core of the thesis Why a boy’s best friend is the dog.

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“Alpha – Who Tames the Wolf”: Free TV premiere on ZDF

Eurasia 20,000 years ago: Tribal leader Tau (Johannes Haukur Jóhannesson) takes his son Keda (Kodi Smit-McPhee) for the first time on the traditional bison hunt, which is supposed to secure his people the necessary supplies of food and fur for the rest of the year. When the group finally reached their destination after a long hike and wanted to chase a stately herd to their death in front of a steeply sloping gorge, some animals put up bitter resistance. So Keda is attacked by a monstrous bull in such a way that he then falls down the cliff himself. Tau and his hunters think Keda is dead and return to their homeland in mourning.

What they did not know: A few days later the injured woke up and saved himself from the predicament thanks to the support of a wolfhound who had been expelled from his pack and which he called Alpha (in real life: Chuck) because of his strength. From then on, the two are inseparable friends for life. Keda wants to take Alpha to his tribe, but they have to hurry because the onset of the inhospitable winter in the wilderness is already on their necks …

“Alpha – who tames the wolf” (ZDF): Buddy movie with an almost philosophical background

Director Albert Hughes, who had directed “The Street Fighters”, “Dead Presidents”, “From Hell” and “The Book of Eli” together with his twin brother Allen from 1993-2010, developed the gripping story himself, but left the script to be worked out Daniele Sebastian Wiedenhaupt. After meticulous preparation, the “mother of all Jack London dog films” was created, so to speak, even if the “Wolfsblut” version does not require a direct template from the American master writer.

Although the US $ 51 million production with digital effects is really not stingy (the “CGI plate photography” was made in Iceland, while the Austrian “Tehran Tabu” cameraman Martin Gschlacht recorded the “rest” in Canada and California) but the interaction between the shooting star Kodi Smit-McPhee, known from “X-Men: Apocalypse” (2016) and the extremely docile wolfhound Chuck in the foreground.

Despite all the hardships, “Alpha” is a buddy movie with an almost philosophical background. After a short narrator introduction by Oscar winner Morgan Freeman (“Million Dollar Baby”), in the original all dialogues are completely in a prehistoric-looking fantasy language of the anthropologist Christine Schreyer, which gives the film additional authenticity. In the German dubbing, the prehistoric humans unfortunately all speak the purest standard German …

“Alpha – who tames the wolf” (ZDF) with a serious shortcoming

Second shortcoming of the archaic survival adventure, reminiscent of Mel Gibson’s great historical drama “Apocalypto” (2006) and Alejandro G. Iñárritus’ no less impressive western “The Revenant” (2015): For one scene, bison were actually slaughtered and skinned, which is why “Alpha” did not receive the compulsory “No animals were harmed” certificate from the American Humane Association and called on the animal welfare organization PETA to boycott. Why there was no digital trick here is beyond the knowledge of the otherwise extremely positive film critic … (Marc Hairapetian)