Okja

A teenage girl wants nothing more than to remain with her lifelong pet and companion – the super pig Okja – in Korean auteur Bong Joon- ho's latest film. Everything else is just stuff that gets in the way.

Bong delivers one of Netflix's better high profile original films in "Okja," a quirky yet topical yet big-hearted film. Similar to Bong's 2006 breakout film "The Host," a monster movie about a doltish dad who will do anything to rescue his daughter, "Okja" plays to family themes (a girl and her pet) but presents them through a mature, adult lens (corporate greed, environmentalism, genetic science).

So the context of "Okja" is complicated, but the story is quite simple and human. 14-year-old Mija (An Seo-hyun) has lived with her grandfather on a mountainside farm in South Korea for most of her life with Okja, a super pig gifted to the farm by Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) and the Mirando Corporation as part of a competition to develop the pigs as a non-GMO food source to help fight hunger. When the corporation and super pig judge Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal) come to collect, Okja is clearly the finest of the super pigs in the world, and they endeavor to take her to New York City. Mija follows them to Seoul and attempts to get her friend back, coming up against the corporation and a group of animal rights activists, all of which have different agendas for Okja.

Hilarious and deeply disturbing, violent but also quite warm, Bong has created another distinctive film that makes him one of the most interesting filmmakers that not enough people are talking about. The mixed bag of tones will certainly turn off viewers who aren't sure what to do with a film that doesn't fit in any one neatly labeled genre box, those with an open mind will appreciate the way he tells extremely accessible stories that address complicated themes.

Okja means a lot of things to a lot of people: friendship and stability to Mija; money, science and reputation to the Mirando Corporation; injustice and corporate greed to the animal liberation group; and affordable food to the masses. The plot is essentially these competing interests sorting themselves out.

Part of what makes "Okja" distinctive is the caricaturized supporting roles that make everything feel just a shade unusual. As she did in Bong's last film, "Snowpiercer," Swinton so effortlessly creates a wildly larger than life character portrait that simultaneously feels grounded in reality. Gyllenhaal, on the other hand, is infuriatingly grating as the eccentric loose cannon TV personality, but his character is a signal to the audience of how to look at and think of the world of the film.

Bong has such a specific perspective on society that comes through in way subtle and not in "Okja." He brilliantly whittles the story down to one pivotal moment at the end, and the outcome of all this chaos suggests he's neither pessimistic nor optimistic. Perhaps he would argue that it's not his business to come down one way or another, but simply to use a giant hippo-like pig to at least prove that our world is majorly – and maybe unnecessarily – complicated

~Steven C

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I have never cried so much, after watching Okja it really opened my eyes to what really happens to livestock in the world. If you are an animal lover i suggest you watch this. If you want to know the reason why a lot of people are vegan you should watch this. After watching this I decided to cut back on meat slowly until i completely cut it off. It's an inspiration, thank you so much to the creators.

I waited to watch this movie. I decided to watch it today. It's good. I thought it was going to be an adventure movie during the first 30 minutes.

While I liked this movie, it turns into an animal welfare movie. Animal welfare is important and mass farms/gmo foods needs everyone's attention but this movie didn't seem to take it to the extreme to really have an impact.

I enjoyed myself while watching but ultimately this movie is forgettable.

Exciting and excellent film. I was looking forward to this movie and the truth, it was so cute. An excellent cast that meets and each acted excellent. The story so exciting, This film is the real love between a person and an animal. From the beginning to the end she kept me entertained to the screen. Of the best films of the year. Do not miss the post-credits scene. wonderful

Outright and audacious, Bong Joon-Ho's Netflix feature Okja might be one of the funniest films about animal and industry abuse that I'll ever see. Combining a proper sense of quirkiness and wit, the film's clever message resonated through me even after watching it. I wouldn't call it a piece of vegetarian propaganda, though I can see why people find it too preachy to be entertaining. For me, this film is more of a portrait of political cinema, on how the cycle of abuse works in the industry, and how the corporation has two faces: the smiling, jubilant heads they show to the public and the dirty, notorious brains they have, grabbing for money, behind the screen.

It isn't so much as an anti-meat film despite some of the plot points presented (even with an inclusion of an Animal Liberation Front group). The subject of the film is this super-pig hybrid which is supposed to serve as a revolutionary change in the meat industry. Just like the animal, this film is a cross-breed of different genres, it is a satirical movie at first, then turning into an adventure film, and, once it moves to the third act, becomes a poignant view of the relationship between a young Korean girl and her pet. This clash of genres don't always mix well, but I personally thought that the film was really effective in trying to engage its viewers into the story and into the journey of this young girl going through a personal transformation as she realizes that corporations and media aren't always as innocent as they seem. Even the design of the super-pig is superb, it feels real and tangible and it doesn't overdo the CGI, which is great.

The performances across the board are fantastic. Among those that stand out are Ahn Seo- hyun, who really is the underdog protagonist of the film, Tilda Swinton, the head of the expensive industry, and Jake Gyllenhaal, who puts sort of a quirky and charismatic magic into his character, Dr. Johnny Wilcox. The first half of the film is excellent, while the second half didn't really do a good job of tying all the subplots together, so some of the narratives really fell loose during the end. I did like what turned out of Mija and Okja, but I wanted to see some resolution for the other narratives, especially the Animal Rights group led by Paul Dano's character.

Okja is a great spectacle, combining enough weird lopsidedness to it while still feeling realistic in a dystopian, sci-fi, coming of age style. I did like how Joon-Ho tackled issues of corporate capitalism, but this film could've improved on how it transitioned between genres and on how the tiny narrative coincided together at the end. Having that said, Okja is still worth a watch; it is surprisingly funny, eye-opening, and personally one of the best Netflix has to offer currently.