Animal cruelty?

The son kills a stray cat with a pair of gardening shears.

The credits aren't in English so I can't see whether there was a disclaimer but I really doubt the actor actually stabbed a cat to death.

It does indeed state in the end that no animals were harmed during the making of the film. Of course it's in greek so I can see how many people wouldn't know what's written.. But no need to worry!

How can animal cruelty ever be worse than human cruelty?

Yes this film shows graphic violence, self-mutilation, incest, physical and psychological abuse etc. - all fine apparently but, boy, if a cat gets killed ... that's a step too far!!!

No offence to animal lovers (honestly) but please try to see things in perspective.

It's like in "American Psycho" when Bateman is at a cash machine and is about to shoot a cat and everyone in the cinema goes "nooooooooooooooooooo", and then he kills an old woman and people go "ahhhh, much better". I just don't get it.

A cat is disemboweled with garden sheers. You're never going to see real animal cruelty on film. I remember on the commentary track for The Shawshank Redemption they talked about the one scene where the one character feeds some mealworms to his pet bird and they said they had to find mealworms which had died of natural causes, they couldn't just feed the bird live mealworms.

"Unless Alpert's covered in bacon grease, I don't think Hugo can track anything."

I'm surprised nobody mentioned that the dog was being trained in Schutzhund, and wasn't just "being beat with a stick". I don't know how to word it properly without sounding stupid, so I'm just going to copy and paste the description from Wikipedia (I read over to make sure it was correct!)

In the protection phase, the judge has an assistant, called the "decoy", who helps him test the dog's courage to protect himself and his handler and his ability to be controlled while doing so. The decoy wears a heavily padded sleeve on one arm. There are several blinds, placed where the decoy can hide, on the field. The dog is directed to search the blinds for the decoy. When he finds the decoy, he indicates this by barking. The dog must guard the decoy to prevent him from moving until recalled by his handler. There follows a series of exercises similar to police work where the handler searches the decoy and transports him to the judge. At specified points, the decoy either attacks the dog or the handler or attempts to escape. The dog must stop the attack or the escape by biting the padded sleeve. When the attack or escape stops, the dog is commanded to "out," or release the sleeve. The dog must out or he is dismissed. At all times the dog must show the courage to engage the decoy and the temperament to obey his handler while in this high state of drive. Again, the dog must show enthusiasm. A dog that shows fear, lack of control, or inappropriate aggression is dismissed.

hahaha, as soon as I saw the dog being attacked incredibly softly with that stick, and the cat being attacked I knew that on IMDB there were going to be Americans crying over animal cruelty.

Actually, the cat scene is pretty obviously faked, although it is graphic and a very striking scene in the movie. A cleverly timed cutaway does the job there.

I actually thought the scene where the dog is being hit by the trainer was much more realistic and difficult to fake. I assume a rubber stick or something but still quite disturbing viewing.

This is just sick.

It's fake.

And to the guy/girl bring up the fish in the plastic bag: Oh my god how idiotic that sounds.

Don't assume. It makes an ass out of u and me.