Okja (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Joon-ho Bong (Memories of Murder, The Host, Snowpiercer)
	Actors: Tilda Swinton (Only Lovers left Alive, Doctor Strange), Paul Dano, Seo-Hyun Ahn, Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko, The Day after Tomorrow), Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad TV-series)
	Country: USA, ROK
	Genre: Fantasy, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 12.02.2018, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Looking to revive her multi-national corporation, Lucy Mirando (Swinton) entrusts the growing of super-pigs to a handful of farmers around the globe. Ten years later when time for ending the contest comes, the little Korean girl Mija (Ahn) has befriended the super-pig entrusted to her grand-father and named Okja.
Review: Okja belongs to this category of movies fully produced by the Netflix Video-On-Demand giant (growing full list available here on IMDb), of which we have reviewed Spectral and Bright in two different genres, although Fantasy or SF was always more or less present. And I am not even talking about series. The difference with Okja is that it is the first one for which I had heard it won awards, so I was quite curious to see what it looked like. I noticed it was a mix of genres that seemed designed to win awards: a bit of eco-conscience and despise for global corporations, a cute CGI beast and her funny relationship with a touching little girl, countryside, cities, action... a bit of everything. On top of that, it turned out to be a mix of Western and Korean movie-making styles: Korean for the character's barely believable reaction, American for the Action, even European for the Balkan soundtrack to such scenes, American for the Acting, Korean director (of which we loved Memories of Murder, The Host, his segment in Tokyo! and Mother, less so his other American endeavor Snowpiercer), American producers, lowest bidder for the special effects that sometimes are very poorly integrated to the live action (Joon-ho Bong should have stuck to the Kiwi Weta "The Lord of the Rings" Digital he used on The Host). Being accustomed to Asian movies I could live with the weird pace and characters, but not too much as I was expecting an award-winning American blockbuster. In fact I simply found it hard to watch in one go because of the messy rhythm. But paradoxically what I will remember from the movie was brought by the Korean influence: peaceful countryside landscapes, a little girl not behaving like her boring American counterpart would, and some image juxtapositions that put you ill-at-ease and would never have found their place in a Hollywood-produced family movie, like the meat-tasting, the parade organized for Okja, or the scenes leading to the ending that furiously remind of the Holocaust (spoiler, highlight to read: in particular the couple of super-pigs having the very human reaction of throwing their baby to freedom through electrified barbwire). Like somebody told me once: one day we will look at meet-eating like we do now at slavery. We are far from there yet, but Okja can take you a little bit of the way.
Rating: 4 /10