Okja

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.

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 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.

Bong Joon Ho is without a doubt one of the top five or ten working directors today. When it comes to juggling genre and tone almost no one is his equal. With an all-star international cast and its production by Netflix, this may be his most accessible movie yet; however, it may also be his most bizarre. It's the kind of movie that will leave you laughing one minute, crying the next, and then raising your eyebrows the next. It's so refreshing to see a film not conform to easy plot points and pandering like this film could have done so many times. Rather it takes tonal and story risks that consistently pay off. It helps that it maintains a solid satirical tone throughout allowing even the dysfunctional and reprehensible characters to remain interesting and some even likable. The actors are all terrific, particularly Ahn Seo Hung in her film debut. She keeps the emotional component grounded throughout the film and provides the most resonating moments. The only performer who may not resonate with everyone is Jake Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal goes all out insane for his role and while I enjoyed the lunacy, many will not be fans. My only complaint was that some of the scenes with Tilda Swinton descended into too much exposition which hinders some of the pacing. Despite the familiarity of the story, it will consistently sneak up on you with wonderful unexpected moments. Its another example of the daring and beautiful films coming from Korea, the best country for cinema in the past decade. If studios don't want to lose out to Netflix, they need to be willing to back the same kind of talent and allow for the same kind of artistic freedom.

Pro-tip: Watch past the end credits

Full disclaimer; I am a vegetarian, so I was always going to be sympathetic to the message of this film. And while some would argue, perhaps correctly in most cases, that the medium IS the message, it doesn't always hold that a noble sentiment translates into a well made film. Thankfully this is not the case here.

A whirlwind mash of genres (part heist movie; part buddy comedy; part activist polemic) Okja is a beautifully executed interweaving of the complex and deep relationship between humanity and the other animals that inhabit our planet. Despite (obviously) heavy use of CGI for Okja herself, the Super Pig's presence is (mostly) seamless with the rest of the environment, and its convincing and moving interactions with the rest of the cast, not least a starring performance from young Seo Hyun as Mija, were enough to move me to tears more than once.

At no point does the film verge into 'preachiness', however, nor wander into grisly animal-rights documentary territory. It achieves this through interspersing some nicely shot action scenes with the odd absurdist comic line, before, towards the end of the film, revealing in jarring and emotional fashion the logical consequence of mass, production-line slaughter. And that really is the main takeaway from the film; not that MEAT=BAD, but rather that the industrialised killing our profit-driven society has allowed to develop is an unbearable and heartbreaking infringement of the rights of the living beings with which we must share our earth.

Perhaps the only reservation is Jake Gyllenhaal's bizarre performance as Johnny Wilcox. I personally didn't have that much of a problem with it, although can see why the OTT nature of it might pull one out of the film on occasion. Nonetheless, Okja is a film bold in its scale and confident in its message. At once gentle and brutal; funny and poignant, I really can't give this film any more praise without it sounding like I'm a Netflix plant. Highly recommended, whatever you choose to put on your plate...