| “ | Bami: Sounds like where I was. It was a puppy mill. They literally breed hundreds of baby dogs until the mothers die. I only know because...that's where I was raised. He drugs my mom away mercilessly when her exhausted body finally gave out. Once I saw the other dog, I managed to shake myself free and run. It was the first time I had ever tasted freedom. I was surreal. I was determined to never go back. I ran and ran until I was so far away, I couldn't smell the factory anymore. I was so hurt; I could have died out there all alone, but Edward found me. I could just never understand my humans are so mean. Moongchi: Forget about all that! This will be our home now. We'll be happy and we can all live together. Bami: Do you mean it ? |
„ |
| ~ Bami telling her tragic past to Moongchi. |
| “ | No way! Don't ask me to leave you alone. I won't. | „ |
| ~ Bami refuses to let Moongchi risk his life alone because she cares about him now. |
Bami (밤이) or also known as Kelley in the English Dub is the deuteragonist of the South Korean 2018 animated film, Underdog.
She is a former kennel dog abused who escaped for living in nature far from humans until she was taken in by wild dogs who became her new family. When the forest is no longer safe, Bami and her adopted family accompany a group of stray dogs to a safe place to live, while being stalked by the hunter who ran the kennel where Bami grew up.
She was voiced by Park So-dam in the Korean Dub and by Kimmie Britt in the English Dub.
Appearance[]
Bami is a very beautiful female dog with a slender physique, light black coat with gray ventral and facial parts. She has straight pointed ears, thin eyebrows, a brown nose and wolf-like muzzle. Throughout the movie, Bami accumulates several scratches, one on her muzzle, on her right paw, and on her left shoulder resulting from her last boar hunt.
Personality[]
Bami is brave, determined, sensitive, confident and strong. Her life in nature has made Bami an outstanding hunter with perfect hunting strategy planning. Initially a little anti-social towards stray dogs, Bami ultimately became friends with them, even laughing with them.
Due to being maltreated by humans from childhood to adulthood, Bami hates humans more than anything but after meeting nicer humans, she begins to think that they are not all despicable and and fully trusts them once she knows them well enough.
She loves her surrogate family very much and was really upset when her adoptive parents died. She cares a lot about Tari who is like her little brother, like when she comforted him after the tragedy.
At first, she did not have a very good opinion of stray dogs, especially of Moongchi, calling them idiots unable to hunt and wanderer. During their first interaction, she threw away the bone that Moongchi was bringing as a gift and advised him to get to hunt a boar for a chance to impress her. She was later angry at him for causing her forced departure from the forest and never wanted him to cross her path again. This bad opinion ended up disappearing after Moongchi took the full force of the tranquilizer dart intended for Bami and they had to travel together to find a place to live, even developing romantic feelings for Moongchi.
History[]
Past[]
Bami was born in a factory kennel among many brothers and sisters born by force to be sold. When she was still very young, her mother had become so tired that the hunter who ran the kennel threw her into the wilderness to die. When she became an adult, the hunter abused her with metal sticks that he hit against the bars of her cage. One day, she almost was forced to mate with a kennel watchdog, but she managed to run away into the forest where she ran again and again until she no longer smelled the smell humans before collapsing from exhaustion. She was then found by a mountain dog named Edward who introduced the exhausted dog to his mate Annie and their son Tari. Bami would later become a full member of their family.
Underdog[]
Bami and her adoptive family eagerly hunt a wild boar which ends up escaping them. During the chase, she tries to knock over the boar but it's the wild boar who knocks her down, causing her to crash into Moongchi, a recently abandoned Border Collie that was dragged through the forest. She briefly growls at the stray dog before resuming the hunt. Back in their lair, the mountain dogs briefly talked about the stray dogs living below before mentioning their supply problem. When the parents left to hunt rats, Bami had to keep Tari shortly before they both played together.
Sometime later, Moongchi visits the wild dogs to join them, but he is rejected because they do not like stray dogs and because he does not know hunted. Once the rest of her family has returned to the den, Bami warns Moongchi not to return, while calling him wanderer. Moongchi then offers to bring a rat to prove himself, but Bami says that it will not be enough unless he hunts a boar.
The following day, Moongchi brings back goats to wild dogs, but they refuse them because it only endangers them because of humans who owns the goats. Bami then had to recover Tari who wanted to help Moongchi to bring back the goats. She told her brother that they had to leave and when Moongchi asked why, Bami replied that it was because of him. Moongchi says he only wanted to hunt with them, so Bami describes his act like unrelated to hunting and advises him not to cross paths before returning to the den.
Barely gone, Bami is saved from a tranquilizer dart by Moongchi. Seeing the hunter, Bami petrifies with fear as she remembers her past in the kennel. The hunter tries to shoot her again, but Moongchi takes the shot this time. Bami then flees when the hunter sends his dogs after her while Tari is also captured.
In the evening, Bami and her adoptive parents come to rescue Tari, Moongchi and all the dogs locked in the kennel. The hunter tries to attack a less frightened Bami with a shovel, only to find himself stuck on blocks of cement. Bami tries to finish the humans, but her adoptive father dissuades her, and the dogs leave.
After the escape, the abandoned village where the stray dogs live is destroyed by humans, forcing the Moongchi and his friends to leave and find a place where they can all live in peace that Gaeko knew long before, accompanied by wild dogs. During the trip, the relations between Moongchi and Bami improved a lot.
They then arrive at a journey which they must cross a peripheral to continue. Unfortunately, Edward and Annie lost their lives after being hit by a tow truck, to the sadness of dogs but much for Bami and Tari. After mourning them and sleep until morning, Bami comforts a Tari particularly affected by the deaths of his parents.
Having eaten nothing since the beginning of the trip, Bami plans an ambush on a group of water deer with the help of all the dogs. Once a deer is isolated and redirected in her direction, Bami kills him by biting his neck, thus serving the feast to the dogs. Later, Bami and Moongchi are walking in a foxtail field because they had felt it a lot in their youth. Bami then recounts her painful past where she saw her mother being taken from her before her eyes and then suffered until she escaped and meet with those who ultimately became her new family. Compassionate, Moongchi assures her that she no longer needs to think about it because a better future is offered to dogs, then the two begin to bond as they both happily run along the edge of the lake under the setting sun.
The group later escaped an attempt to capture the hunter, his minions, his dogs including one that Bami knocks out with a jumping headbutt and a fire in the field. After crossing an unoccupied road then a dark tunnel, the band come across a house inhabited by injured dogs and a couple of humans taking care of them. These same humans also provide food for the group and a temporary overnight stop. During their rest in the shade of the trees, Bami and the others burst out laughing when they saw Jjangah shaved by the woman to heal a stomach wound and wearing a collar.
During the night, Moongchi isolates himself from the others before being quickly joined by Bami. Understanding what is bothering him, Bami affirms that it is her that the hunter wants then Moongchi reveals that he had a tracking chip implanted while he was captive and therefore, he cannot stay, or the hunter will be able to capture her or their friends. Bami still refuses to let him go alone, having become very attached to him.
As Moongchi feared, the hunter finds him and chases him as Moongchi tries to pull him away from a sleeping Bami. Awakened by the crash of the hunter's all-terrain vehicle, Bami joins the fight against the despicable man and in the end, the two dogs beat the hunter. Bami tackles the human to the ground and nearly kills him by biting his throat before warning him to leave them alone, scaring him to the point that he flees and then gets lost in a path infested with mines. Bami and Moongchi then return to the nice couple to recover from wounds inflicted during the fight, say goodbye to Jjangah choosing to stay in the house and continue the journey with the rest of their friends.
Finally, the dogs reach the mysterious place which turns out to be the Korean border. Bami thanks Gaeko for bringing them this far but the hardest part is still to be done. After passing with some difficulty on the other side because of the soldiers defending the border, Bami and her friends then watches helplessly as Moongchi tries to escape the humans as the border gate has just been closed. The Border Collie tries to pass over the two fences separating him from the others, dropping a grenade which explodes then gives him the momentum necessary to hover on the other side and Bami catches him. Rolling in the flowers after the collision, Bami lovingly licks Moongchias their friends join them, begin a new happy life finally safe.
During the credits, Bami and Moongchi enjoy with their friends this new life in nature and had three puppies.
Quotes[]
| “ | Bami: No I'm alright. I haven't seen a boar in forever. And who was that dog? Annie: He was a stray. They lived down below. Bami: What a dimwit. The jerk ruined the hunt. |
„ |
| ~ Bami after the boar hunt. |
| “ | Bami: We should take the easy wave in. Maybe if we go further down the mountains, we can. Edward: No domestic animals. We've discussed this before, the dogs living there were all caught and taken away. Bami: Why should we be the ones to go without? We're only here because of them in the first place. Edward: Stop talking like that. We'll be fine we're staying right here. |
„ |
| ~ Bami unsuccessfully suggests hunting domestic herbivores. |
| “ | Bami: Don't come up here again, stray one. Moongchi: My name is Jacob! What if I prove I can catch a rat? Bami: That's a piece of cake. Try to catch a wild boar. |
„ |
| ~ Bami demands that Jacob/Moongchi hunt better than a rat to impress her. |
| “ | Bami: Trevin! You shouldn't be here it's dangerous. Tari: I'm okay, Kelley. Bami: Let's go. The pack is leaving. Moongchi: Where are you going? Bami: I don't know yet. We've lost our home because of what you did. Moongchi: I just...wanted to prove my worth to you guys. Bami: Dumb stray. You were supposed to hunt, instead you stole from the humans. Don't show your face around here again. |
„ |
| ~ Bami angered by Moongchi's botched attempts to hunt, forcing the departure from the mountain. |
| “ | Come on, let's get out of here. | „ |
| ~ Bami releases Moongchi from his cage. |
| “ | Get a drink to water. | „ |
| ~ Bami to Moongchi. |
| “ | If we corner them here, they'll run into this open field and we'll need to block them here. | „ |
| ~ Bami plans the water deer hunt. |
| “ | So we're gonna drive the deer into this central area. Jacob, you're going to drive them into the woods as fast as possible. | „ |
| ~ Bami gives Jacob/Moongchi his place in the hunt. |
| “ | Let's move on. That's a human house. | „ |
| ~ Bami suspicious at human abode. |
| “ | You better leave us alone. | „ |
| ~ Bami subduing the Hunter. |
| “ | It's gonna get more painful as we go. Why don't we let those people help. | „ |
| ~ Bami suggests that she and Moongchi seek treatment from the human couple. |
| “ | Tony. Thank you for bringing us here. | „ |
| ~ Bami thanks Tony/Gaeko for making the trip a success. |
| “ | You're amazing, Jacob. | „ |
| ~ Bami hugging Jacob/Moongchi after he successfully crossed the border. |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Bami and Moongchi's three puppies share the physical appearance of their parents. One is identical to Moongchi, the other to Bami and the last one is a mixture of both.
- It is quite difficult to know if Bami is a wolf or a Tamaskan, a notorious Finnish dog breed very well known for its appearance very similar to wolves. Either way, this would explain the Bami's natural talent for hunting since the wolf is a wild predator and the Tamaskan is known to have hunting instincts.
- Bami's initial disdain for humans is quite close to Anthropophobia, though she was only afraid of the hunter and was mostly suspicious of the rest of humanity.
- Although mostly depicted in 3D animation, Bami's brief appearance as a puppy in the flashback was made in traditional animation.