Chen Halin, China, comedy, drama, Every Dog Has Its Day, Kenny Lin, Li Youbin, Ling Gengxin, movies, reviews, Song Quan, Victoria Song, Wang Yanlin
January 27, 2026
by Carla Hay
“Every Dog Has Its Day” (2026)
Directed by Yue Yang
Mandarin with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in China, the comedy/drama film “Every Dog Has Its Day” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A debt-ridden and unqualified man takes a job as a caregiver for a suicidal elderly man with Parkinson’s disease and who wants his new caregiver to help him commit suicide.
Culture Audience: “Every Dog Has Its Day” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and bittersweet movies about caregiving and learning to appreciate life.
“Every Dog Has Its Day” shows what happens when a down-on-his-luck underachiever ends up working as a caregiver for a suicidal senior citizen who has Parkinson’s disease. This comedy/drama has familiar beats and story arcs about two men who have an unlikely friendship with a large age gap. However, the performances from the principal cast members are good enough to keep viewers entertained by this story.
Directed by Yue Yang, “Every Dog Has Its Day” was written by Liu Qian, Shao Yan and Zhang Dahai. The movie takes place in an unnamed city in China. “Every Dog Has Its Day” was actually filmed in China’s Guizhou province.
“Every Dog Has Its Day” begins by showing 36-year-old Ma Teng (played by Ling Gengxin, also known as Kenny Lin) running in a street because he’s being chased by people who want to collect money that he owes to them. Teng later reveals that he’s ¥100,000 in debt, mostly because he invested in a bad business deal with a scammer who stole his money. He is currently unemployed and needs to find a job quickly. His most recent job was a low-paying position as a sanitation worker at an aquarium.
Teng will soon turn 37, and he’s trying not to feel like a loser. Conversations that happen later in the movie reveal that Teng used to be married and he owned a home. But he lost the home because of financial irresponsibility, and he is now divorced. Teng’s ex-wife Zhou Yun (played by Song Quan, also known as Victoria Song) has full custody of their daughter Ma Shan (played by Chen Halin), who’s about 7 or 8 years old.
Teng wants joint custody of Ma Shan, but Yun isn’t convinced that Teng is financially stable enough to have joint custody. Yun tells Teng that if he can prove that he has ¥50 million in his bank accounts, then she will consider giving him joint custody. Teng knows that he has a long way to go before he can come close to having that type of money.
Desperate people do desperate things. And that’s why when Teng applies for a job as a live-in caregiver for an upper-middle-class elderly widower, Teng lies in the interview by saying that he is qualified. The person who needs the caregiving doesn’t have a first name in the movie. He is called Lao Lin (played by Li Youbin), which translates to Old Lin, and he is 71 years old.
Lao Lin used to be a steel technician in a factory. He doesn’t like retirement very much. He is very cranky and seems to hate his life. He didn’t use to be this way. The movie implies that Lin is very unhappy because he has Parkinson’s disease and often has to use a wheelchair. Teng will eventually find out how miserable Lao Lin is.
During the interview, Teng says that he is 25 years old. But then, he confesses his real age. Teng says he’s very reliable and he wants a chance to prove it. To his surprise, Teng gets the job. He’ll soon find out why it was so easy to be hired for this job.
Not long after Teng moves in and starts working for Lao Lin, Teng finds out that the turnover for this job has been very high. Lao Lin says that Teng is the fifth caregiver he’s had so far. The person who had the job before Teng abruptly quit. Lao Lin wants his hired caregiver to secretly help Lao Lin commit suicide.
There’s a reason why Teng was chosen: Lao Lin knows that Teng is a bit of a con artist, so Lao Lin thinks Teng will be the type to want to kill Lao Lin if Teng has a financial incentive for it. Lao Lin says he’s going to leave an inheritance of ¥300,000 to Lao Lin’s grandson and give the rest of the inheritance to Teng if Teng will help Lao Lin commit suicide.
Lao Lin has a strained and distant relationship with his son Lin Qin (played by Wang Yanlin), who thinks Lao Lin is very hard to please. Teng witnesses an argument between father and son that shows the resentment between them runs deep. Teng doesn’t know if he should tell people about Lao Lin’s morbid request to have Teng help Lao Lin kill himself.
Teng doesn’t think Lao Lin is serious about committing suicide, but Lao Lin is very determined to do it. The rest of the movie shows the ups and downs of their relationship as Teng and Lao Lin get to know each other. Of course, it’s easy to predict that they start to have a close friendship that’s like a surrogate father-son relationship.
“Every Dog Has Its Day” shows Teng convincing Lao Lin that they should travel to other countries before Lao Lin says goodbye to life. But first, as required by Chinese law, they need to get travel health insurance for Lao Lin before his passport can be approved to travel outside of China. And so, there’s a long stretch of the movie about getting this type of health insurance.
The movie has some cutesy scenes, such as Teng and Lao Lin visiting an amusement park and going on various rides. There are also some darkly comedic scenes, such as Lao Lin’s botched attempts at suicide. The movie gives a realistic portrayal of the despair that people often feel when they have a terminal illness.
Teng goes from being tempted to consider Lao Lin’s offer because Teng needs the money to wanting Lao Lin to live as long as possible. Lao Lin’s despair makes Teng appreciate that his own life isn’t bad as he thought it was. Teng predictably makes a tremendous difference in Lao Lin’s outlook on life. Although the supporting cast members give very good performances, the heart and soul of the movie are the lively performances by Lin as Teng and Li as Lao Lin.
“Every Dog Has Its Day” pushes all the emotional buttons that are found in movies with this subject matter. Some of the movie’s dialogue, tone and pacing are uneven, but “Every Dog Has Its Day” mostly succeeds in its attempt to be heartwarming. “Every Dog Has Its Day” seems to end on a cliffhanger before the end credits are shown. However, viewers need to watch the movie’s final scene after the end credits to find out the real ending.
Tiger Pictures Entertainment released “Every Dog Has Its Day” in select U.S. cinemas and in China on January 16, 2026.