Red Dog: True Blue: 'I'll call you Blue'

A lonely kid, a puppy lost in a storm ... it’s a heart-warmer waiting to happen. Kriv Stenders’ Red Dog: True Blue (2016), a prequel to his 2011 film Red Dog, shows the origin story of a kelpie who travels around the Pilbara. Red Dog was based, with some licence, on a true story; Red Dog: True Blue is an imaginative work.   

In this clip, the homestead where Mick (Levi Miller) lives with his forbidding grandfather (Bryan Brown) has been hit by a cyclone. Mick finds a puppy left high and dry by the storm and forms an instant ‘best mates’ bond with him.   

Like Crocodile Dundee before it, Red Dog: True Blue makes lavish use of northern Australian landscapes and the laconic toughness of the men who live in them – epitomised by Brown at his craggiest. However, from this moment on, the city kid Mick and his dog pal Blue start breaking down Granddad's walls. The puppy (uncredited) is replaced in later scenes by an ingenious adult kelpie (Phoenix), a worthy successor to Koko, the star of Red Dog.

Explore more Top dogs of the Australian screen