The Dogs of Shanghai: A Portrait of Loyalty, Lifestyle, and Loneliness

Dogs are part of daily life in Shanghai’s parks, grooming studios and small neighbourhood shops. Alchemist Films’ documentary account follows the people who care for them, exploring the companionship, community and loneliness around those relationships. It also includes a visit to a rural shelter in China.

The scenes below come from our account of location filming. They bring together the voices of owners and carers, with the photographs preserved in the gallery.

Updated 6 November 2026

A community that started online

A message in a QQ group asking people to walk their dogs together grew into gatherings of owners and pets. At Huating Village on Shanghai’s outskirts, we filmed dogs running, playing and sniffing one another while their owners sat on the grass.

The shared activity gave people a reason to meet. Multiple cameras and drone coverage followed the movement across the gathering, while closer views showed the exchanges between dogs and owners.

The daily work of a shelter

At a rural shelter in China, an older man cared for abandoned dogs with limited resources. We visited to document the routine of feeding, cleaning and caring for animals in worn buildings and yards. The cracked platforms and crowded spaces in the photographs give that daily work a physical setting.

At a shelter run by Shanghai Small Animal Protection, we met volunteer Gong Lei and a long-haired rescue dog called Lele.

“I love Lele the most,” she said, holding him, “but he probably won’t be adopted. People usually want small, young dogs.”

Her words expressed the difficulty of caring for a dog while wondering whether someone would offer him a home. We used natural light and handheld filming for the interviews, staying close to the carers and animals.

Care at the grooming studio

In a Shanghai grooming studio, Jojo waited on a table imported from Japan. Masaki, a Japanese grooming expert, described how owners treated dogs as members of the family and changed their hairstyles as people changed fashions.

Filming concentrated on the work itself: the texture of fur, the movement of scissors and the attention between groomer and dog. These small details offered another view of the time and care people devoted to their pets.

Aini in the neighbourhood shop

Xia Qiren ran a small grocery shop in Jing’an with her husband. Their dog was called Aini, meaning “I love you” in Chinese.

“A dog will never betray you,” Xia said. “People? Sometimes they do.”

We filmed Xia in her quiet shop, away from the pace of the street outside. Her story gave the portrait a more private setting, where a dog’s companionship formed part of an ordinary working day.

Photographs from the story

The existing gallery includes dogs gathered in a shelter yard, animals looking out from a dark room, a dog beside a haircut in a worn salon, and the platforms and cracked stairs where shelter dogs rested. Together, the images keep attention on the animals and the spaces they shared with people.

The story moves between public gatherings and these quieter places. Each scene asks what companionship looks like in practice, through a walk, a grooming session, the work of a volunteer or the routine of a neighbourhood shop.