Okja is ultimately a movie about the relationship of a human and a animal and what a person would do to save her best friend. The director Bong Joon Ho, director of ‘parasite’ and ‘The Snowpiercer’ and screenplay writer Jon Ronson masterly blend, humour, action and provoking characters and story telling, without making the message of anti-meat too in your face.
The story centres around Mija (Seo Hyun) and her super pig Okja and the inseparable bond between these two characters share, as Mija fights to save Okja from slaughter. Okja was genetically made in a lab of a big company called Mirando Corporation headed by Lucy Mirando and later her evil twin Nancy Mirando both characters played by Tilda Swinton. The company sets it’s sights on solving world hunger by providing farms across the world with a super pig, (Which she says was naturally discovered despite being made in her labs.) to see which farm and way of life is best suited to the super pigs and the super pig that wins will be the stepping stone to solving world hunger, the winner of this competition will however be revealed in 10 years time when the pig has fully grown.
This is where Mija and Okja come in as Mija has raised Okja with her grand-father Hee Bong (Byun Heebong) for 10 years. She has a real connection with Okja her super pig as we see in the beautifully shot opening scenes as we see Okja and Mija play and hunt for a meal in the Korean mountains.
However as we discover later in the movie Okja is to be taken from Mija’s farm as Okja is the winner of the super pig competition. She is to be studied and later slaughtered at Mirando corps Lab/slaughter house.
Without going through the whole story this is when the real adventure begins as we embark on a journey from Seoul in South Korea to New York City to save Okja.
First off I want to say I did really enjoy this film it has such a good blend of themes without becoming too preachy or political which it could have easily been. The narrative is well structured and always on track despite having a few unexplored sub-plots what I would have like to have seen. The overall casting is fantastic, with a rampant cast of such talented actors and actresses, however one performance I wasn’t particularly keen on. And well the cinematography and music as well as the CGI of Okja herself is superb and CGI hits all those emotions beats.
The narrative which I did go through briefly at the beginning of the review is very engaging. It’s not something we haven’t seen before but nevertheless still had an effect on me as we watch ultimately a girl go to the ends of the earth to save her friend. Specific aspects I really enjoyed was the introduction of the Animal Liberation Front or ALF for short, as the help Mija cook up a grand scheme to rescue Okja from Mirando’s clutches by exposing the true horrors of the company’s lab.
The story isn’t always bright and colourful either as it does go to some dark places showing animal cruelty and slaughtering which really drives home the desperation of getting Okja safe. As I mentioned before a few plot points I felt needed a little more exploring, that being the conflict between two ALF members Jay (Paul Dano) and K (Steven Yeun) as they both have contrasting ideas on how to save Okja, this would have been a really good plot point to explore as it would have provided not only the ALF as a group more depth but also the characters and there ideologies.
Another sub-plot I would have like to have seen more is the relationship of the Mirando twins, as we only see glimpses of there relationship, they obviously don’t like each other but we don’t get much of a reason why, they have different personalities and ideas on how to run a company sure, but is that enough to hate each other like they do. Not only that but we don’t get introduced to Nancy Mirando the evil twin of the two later on in the movie so we don’t really get to see her much at all, which is a real shame.
As for the casting, I loved every actor and actress in this film however one performance I didn’t quite get and seems rather out of place. The protagonist Mija played by Seo Hyun is brilliant, as a young actress in a major role she does such a good job at conveying emotion. She’s relatable, funny and provides the audience with a cute, fun performance. Another and probably my favourite performance or performances of the entire film are that of the group members of the ALF in particular the dynamic performances of Paul Dano as Jay and Steven Yuen as K. They have such a witty back and forth in the movie and every time there on screen they absolutely steal the show for me.
Lastly the performance I wasn’t absolutely sold on was Jake Gyllenhaal’s eccentric, extravagant and extremely cocky, wildlife TV celebrity Johnny Wilcox. I absolutely love Jake Gyllenhaal as an actor, I adore some of his work such as ‘Nightcrawler’ but here he seemed a little out place for me in his Jim Carrey esc role. Not to say this performance was a total disaster and didn’t take away from the film but just seems like an odd choice of character traits rather than actor.
This film like all of Bong Joon Ho’s movies is shot so beautifully. I absolutely loved the opening in particular as we get some terrific landscapes shots of the Forrest to establish the setting. I also love the use of close up shots onto Okja’s eyes in several parts of the movie to convey emotion to the audience of an animal that can’t speak to show emotion, it was such a smart way to show the audience just how Okja is feeling in any particular moment.
In conclusion I had an absolute blast with this movie. It’s very thought provoking and really sticks with you after viewing. You will get a wide range of emotion from the movie as comedy is very much the fore front of the film with some dark and gritty moments lingering in the background to give the film a sense of seriousness. This movie provides a great story for all types of viewer, this is why I want to give this movie a solid 7 out of 10.
Thanks for reading.
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