User reviews

Much like the concept behind Pink Floyd's "Animals" album, and with the great choice of music throughout this unsung gem, I was just waiting for the Song "Pigs" to start playing in the one of the scenes.

This film has great production, Acting and covers the rampant corruptness in many of our cultural accepted norms. (even the "Animal Liberation Front" shows some corruption, patterned obviously after PETA)

Great Film, Well done. (NETFLIX is competing with the big boys at a fraction of the cost) Glad to see films like this finding the light of day.

Go See It, especially if you are a animal lover and/or sympathizer

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.

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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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

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.

Beautifully crafted tale of a little girl in South Korea who has been with a specially created, slow growing, eventually very large pig, Okja, for ten years, just about her whole life. They live in the mountains alone with her father and Okja is her constant companion with an unbreakable bond. This idyllic life cannot go on as, unknown to her, Okja has been bred and raised for food and those who actually own her, plus many more, have come to claim her. The rest is sort of an adventure of the little girl trying to get Okja back from New York to her beloved mountains against seemingly insurmountable odds. It's a Disney tale at heart with some ugly and unpleasant scenes involving the realities of raising stock. The scenes of the girl with Okja alone are amazingly well filmed. Seo-hyun Ahn as the girl gives a fine, honest performance, but there are much bigger names in this such as Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano and Giancarlo Esposito who provide lesser performances. Swinton & Gyllenhaal have obviously been asked to play way over the top and both are more annoying than anything else. Dano has little to do but be sweet and sincere and Esposito is well, Esposito. The whole thing is a mixed bag. It's realistic, it's unrealistic, it's sweet, it's ugly. The extremely imaginative Bong Joon Ho filmed this in between Snowpiercer and Parasite, both much better films, but all three do exhibit his creativity, originality, versatility and talent. However, I don't know what audience he was aiming for with this. It's seems like a children's film made for adults or something like that?!

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

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.

Being a fan of the director's work, I built this movie a bit too much up in my head. But honestly -- it delivered on everything. It's funny, it's sad; there are happy moments, and deep emotional ones. But despite the drama and comedy going on in this, it also addresses problems going on in our world, and really made me think about these issues.

If you're a fan of the director's previous work, especially "The Host," then you won't be disappointed. Even if you're not familiar with his work, you won't be disappointed. If you can get past the slight weirdness of this movie (which might not fit everyone's taste), I can promise you that you won't regret watching this.

This is only the third movie of his I've seen, but it's readily apparent that Bong Joon-ho is a masterful filmmaker. Unfortunately, the writer-director also seems to have a tendency towards delivering heavy-handed social commentary, and, unlike the others I've seen thus far ("Snowpiercer" (2013) and "Parasite" (2019)), this one is overburdened with sentiment. Mawkish message movies are generally too uncomplicated--repeatedly hammering emotional appeals instead of trusting the audience's intelligence with any ambiguities or intricacies. So, here, "Okja" champions the bond between a girl and her titular superpig, a new species that seems to look and act as much like a dog as it does "Babe" (1995) and whose personality and intelligence is otherwise quite human. Assuredly, that's intentional, for us to become invested in the CGI character. Film has been appealing to dog lovers since, at least, Rin Tin Tin and animating anthropomorphic beasts as far back as "Gertie the Dinosaur" (1914). "Okja" is like an outrageous version of the sort of kiddie fare Disney might make.

Stranger still is that "Okja" is a fanciful picture but it appropriates some famous and seemingly-unrelated imagery from real life in its satire of a pork-manufacturing company. For instance, there's the imitation of the "Situation Room" photograph of the Obama administration viewing the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, as, here, Tilda Swinton's CEO and other executives watch their Miranda Corporation receiving bad press coverage. Later, a slaughterhouse resembles the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Unless you're interested in didactic lecturing from a movie on the merits or lack thereof of genetically-engineered food or veganism, or another tale of rustic life as good and city and industry as bad, which I'm not, there isn't much more that's sophisticated in "Okja." Sometimes, it's a thrilling and spectacular picture merely to look at, though. The creature is effectively animated, to the point that she's less cartoonish than the cast of baddies led by stars Swinton, in twin roles, and Jake Gyllenhall. My favorite sequence is when Okja is running loose through Seoul, which serves as a nice contrast to her earlier frolicking about in nature. The rampage through a shopping center, including the subsequent slow motion, is a highlight.

I wasn't expecting to like this very much, but I loved it.

There is no much to say about it but to give it a shot and enjoy it. 9/10.

It makes you think about many things, specially the treatment with have with animals and the relationship with our food consumption.

Okja is a very well-made movie, but I don't really like it. The message feels very heavy-handed.

Bong Joon Ho's follow-up to future cult classic Snowpiercer is part sentimental childhood adventure, part hardcore animal activism movie and part surreal R-rated dark comedy. Without giving anything away, the first two parts work much better than the third, frustratingly so.

Seo-Hyun Ahn is wonderful as Mija, Okja's loving companion, and the first 30 minutes or so that focuses on their relationship is the strongest material here.

Unfortunately, the other performances are all over the map. Jake Gyllenhaal gives a career-worst performance as a "wacky", perpetually drunk, borderline psychotic television host, and he alternates between channeling Jerry Lewis at a 10 and what I can only assume is one of the prisoners from Silence of the Lambs. It absolutely doesn't work at all, comedically or narratively, and he is the very, very, very low point of an otherwise enjoyable ride, completely at odds with the rest of the film. How the studio, filmmakers or actors watched this excruciatingly cartoonish performance and found it remotely acceptable is staggering, but it's a Razzie slam-dunk if I've ever seen one and it severely detracts from the overall experience.

The surreal, eccentric subplot about Tilda Swinton's character and her corporate empire fares slightly better in that it is never cringe-inducing, but still feels at odds with the tone of the Okja-Mija relationship, which is perhaps the only part of the story played relatively straight, for the better.

The film doesn't dance around its unsubtle messages about animals, factory farming and GM foods, to say the least. Some might be taken aback or even appalled at the unapologetic hardcore animal liberation themes, which include graphic, uncomfortable scenes of sadistic animal abuse, and even holocaust allusions. Holocaust allusions in a kid's adventure movie, you say? Welcome to Okja. Did I mention the film is rated R?

Still, if you can be forgiving of some truly curious decisions about tone and plotting, you'll probably enjoy Okja - the best parts of the film, like the heartfelt Okja-Mija relationship and a handful of riveting, beautifully put together action sequences, are so good that it makes the less successful choices more palatable. As of now I'd give it a 6.5 or so, but editing out Jake Gyllenhaal's atrocious performance would automatically bump it up a whole number.

I expected this movie to be a cute relationship movieb between a girl and a pig named Okja, kind of like anime type movie about their bonding, up and downs bla bla. But it turns out to be a shocking movie. Maybe everyone prediction it is totally different. This shows the cruel site of food production and greed of people involved. However,It is an unique as well as a realistic movie.

I expected this to be a certain type of film. To my surprise, it actually turned out to be quite more daring than I would have expected. It takes some ambitious turns in its story and in its execution that I really appreciated its willingness to not just settle for sentimental family entertainment. I also think its case has a lot of fun with the whole thing. Jake Gyllenhaal and especially Tilda Swinton make the most of their eccentric characters and give us some really fun turns. We knew the latter had that in her, but it's great to see Gyllenhaal really letting go. Overall, this isn't an amazing film but it's definitely one that is worth watching, if for those unexpected moments that rise above.

'Okja' has never been high on my list to watch. I really enjoyed 'Snowpiercer' and 'Parasite' from Boon Joon Ho, so I figured I'd give 'Okja' a shot. This film is by no means a bad movie, but I profoundly enjoy the two other previously mentioned films more.

I've always enjoyed Jake Gyllenhaal and Tilda Swinton and their acting chops. Paul Dano continues to impress with his range of characters. Very glad to see Steven Yuen in these mainstream roles. One of my favourite 'Walking Dead' Alumni's, and was done dirty.

I love eating meat, though I most definitely prefer to harvest or hunt for mine. I try as much as I can to purchase from local farmers and avoid the bigger corporations, because unfortunately, the way things are depicted in this film are quite accurate. As long as people will buy from it, it will continue.

Okja is a sort of scifi fairytale, one that is explicit with its very simple messaging but is nevertheless beautiful and heart wrenching.

Bong Joon-ho begins the film in 2007 when the CEO of a food corporation that is heavily invested with GMO's tries to revamp their corporate image by announcing a competition between 26 of their best super piglets. The super piglets are sent across the world to be raised by farmers and in ten years one lucky pig will win the title of Best Super Pig (and then apparently be consumed). Fast forward to 10 years later when a thirteen year old Mija, a country girl living in near isolation with her grandfather, is raising her super pig in the idyllic landscape where they play, forage for apples, and fish together. Things go awry however when she discovers that Okja (her pig) does not belong to her and will be carted off to America. From here on the movie turns into an adventure story as Mija must brave the world in order to be reunited with Okja.

The film is wildly cartoonish in tone, but if you go along with it and let yourself be enchanted by this world you'll find yourself on a wonderful emotional journey. Some cheap CGI made me at first scoff at Okja, but as the movie goes on she seems more and more real till by the end I was near tears watching the film. Great performances by known and unknown actors alike. Just a great movie through and through.

Okja is the name of a specially-bred "superpig", one of many, who have been created to revolutionize the meat industry. Bit of a slow-burning plan however because it takes ten years for the first few pigs to grow up. Okja being one of them, growing up on a distant Korean mountainside. But then the meat packagers, Okja's creators, come back for their property.

Director Bong Joon-ho is more known for his social dramas focusing on class boundaries, but he has dived into science fiction before. Most notably with Snowpiercer. Okja is a bit lighter in tone than that one, more like a fairytale. It's still off-puttingly dark in certain places, especially near the end, but for most of the duration, it's not so bad. Caricatured and exaggerated, certainly, but not so bad.

Where the film falls short, in my opinion, is the execution. It's a weird story idea to begin with, but nothing much is done with it. Not helping is the fact that the message of the story is so obvious and chewed. Eating meat is bad, capitalism is bad, industry is bad. Nature is good, small farms are good, animals are good, living simple lives is good. It's not a bad message, but it's so blatantly shoved down our throats that you end up rebelling against it as reaction.

Still, at least it was a unique viewing experience. You don't see story like this every day. And for that it earns some points.

It's interesting that this film is trying to be a commentary, but it pretty's up a "pig" to look more like a cuddly hippo. By not making the pig a pig it takes away from any message the film is trying to make. This might as well have been some disney garbage.

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...

Two years before taking Hollywood by storm with Parasite, the first non-English speaking movie to bag an Oscar for Best Film, South Korean director Bong Joon Ho presented in 2017 at Cannes Okja, his second American movie after the promising Snowpiercer in 2013 and a remarkable series of good film made at home.

Originally booed at Cannes because a Netflix production, hence without cinema release, the delicate yet aggressive modern fairytale of Okja was able to make an impact for its good storytelling, something nowadays not always found, and that was able to touch the heart of many viewers.

Mixing elegiac moments, particularly in the first part set in Korea and focused on the delicate relationship between the "beast" Okja, the genetically modified superpig produced by ruthless capitalists, and the "beauty", the young girl with a big lion-heart, with other sof pure action, like the beautifully filmed truck chase through the streets of Seoul, echoing 007 and M:I movies, Okja succeeds in keeping a good narrative balance, solving within the fairytale the problems represented by an excess of leads, interesting but not always properly developed, particularly for some of the Animal Liberation Front characters, and some up and down performance of both Tilda Swinton and, even more so, an usually much more composed Jake Gyllenhaal, that in some scenes look like a Wes Anderson's film waste.

Maybe Okja is not an exceptional movie but it is surely interesting and never banal, even when touching on potentially obvious topics like the juxtaposition between animal rights activists and the foodstuff industry. Indeed, it is a movie worth watching for its crafted narrative, the simple originality of the story and the ability of the director, patently confirmed by Parasite, to master at the same time different tones, like fairytale, comedy, drama, social criticism, making sure that oscillating from one to the other, even when not very linear, never looks forced or imposed. In addition to sprinkle the movie with some hidden quotes for the film buffs, Bong Joon Ho ends the movie with an interesting and open ending, where on purpose there is not a clear winner and the question of who really won the battle, and even more so who will win the war, remains sadly open.

Watched this as it was given very good ratings/reviews, usually a pretty reliable method of sifting out the rubbish. Regret that my system failed miserably on this one. Whilst hooked by the first 15 minutes this film collapsed into a pretty muddled, overacted and, quite frankly, ridiculous farce. Although the message was clear it was presented in such a messy way that I struggled to watch it to the end. Fine I guess if you are young and an xr activist but if you're looking for a movie with some class and directed by someone with a degree of intelligence...this is not for you.