LOS ANGELES – There are dog lovers – and then there are dog lovers who adore them, despite being allergic.

One of those diehards is American actor Mark Wahlberg, who went a step further and starred in a movie about a dog.

And by the end of the filming, he even wanted to adopt his canine co-star.

Based on a remarkable true story, Arthur The King sees the Oscar-nominated star play an adventure racer who befriends a wounded stray dog he names Arthur.

The pup then decides to accompany him and his team on a gruelling 700km, 10-day endurance race across the Dominican Republic. As the humans are pushed to their limits, Arthur helps them understand what winning truly means.

Earlier in 2024 at a Los Angeles screening of the adventure film – which opens in Singapore cinemas on April 4 – Wahlberg, 52, gave full credit to the “incredible” Ukai, an Australian Shepherd, border collie and Bouvier des Flandres mix, which attended the event along with the rest of the cast.

“To see what he was able to do, performance-wise, when I was talking to him – you always felt like he knew exactly what we were trying to accomplish and achieve emotionally in the scene,” he said.

“It was really incredible to see that. I was, like, ‘Wow’.”

And Wahlberg ended up being smitten with the pooch.

In a recent interview with People magazine, he says he and his family – wife Rhea Durham, a 45-year-old American model, and their four children aged 14 to 21 – already have four dogs, and he takes medication daily because he is allergic to them.

But he grew so close to Ukai that he wanted to adopt him as well, and tried to bribe the trainer to sell him.

“I took a shot,” Wahlberg says. “I offered her whatever she would want.”

The trainer ultimately turned him down, but the star felt he had to try because of the amazing connection he developed with the animal. “I just fell in love with him.”

Wahlberg was just as captivated by the story of Arthur The King when he first read it.

The screenplay is based on Arthur: The Dog Who Crossed The Jungle To Find A Home, a 2016 memoir written by Swedish extreme athlete Mikael Lindnord, who formed an unbreakable bond with a stray he met on a 2014 race through Ecuador.

It is directed by British film-maker Simon Cellan Jones, who recently worked with Wahlberg on the action-comedy film The Family Plan (2023).

Wahlberg, who received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role in the crime drama The Departed (2006), says: “I found this story to be so inspiring and heart-warming that I knew audiences would love it.

“And to see the reaction from the audience today was just amazing.”

Canadian actor Simu Liu, who plays another member of the race team, says many who watch Arthur The King find themselves getting emotional.

“I’ve seen it a few times now, and watching it in a theatre with a crowd, there are moments when there’s not a dry eye in the audience.

“And everyone is completely quiet and compelled by what’s happening on the screen,” says the 34-year-old star of the superhero film Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings (2021), who also appeared in fantasy comedy Barbie (2023).

“It’s exciting, but it’s also about hope and friendship – and maybe the greatest friendship of all, between man and dog.”

The story follows the ups and downs of the race, and Wahlberg says he connected to it “as a guy who has wanted to model his life after an athlete’s my entire career”.

“It’s the complicated idea of a guy who was so close to finally achieving his goal. You’ve got to be pretty selfish to do what he does, so then to do something so selfless to save Arthur, it was pretty special.”

• Arthur The King opens in Singapore cinemas on April 4.