Part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival
When the multi-national Mirando Corporation, headed by the self-promoting CEO Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) donates one of its “super pigs”, the titular Okja, to a poor Korean farmer and his granddaughter Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun), little do they know that the young girl would develop an attachment to the large creature. However, when they take Okja away from her home and to New York, the determined Mija sets off to rescue her friend, meeting a range of different groups who all want to use Okja for their own gain.
Whilst Bong takes a (marginally) more family-friendly approach this time around in comparison to his earlier films, the most internationally famous example being 2013’s Snowpiercer, he does not use this as an excuse to make Okja more narratively or thematically simple. In contrast, the film is brimming with various subplots and themes, to the extent that it is to Bong’s credit that they do not overshadow the main focus of the narrative – the relationship between Mija and Okja.
Okja is revealed early on to be Mirando’s intended solution to global hunger, with the corporation more than willing to use her as a source for food. On the opposite side of the political spectrum are the animal rights activists led by Jay (Paul Dano), who want to use Okja to expose Mirando’s sadistic treatment of the super pigs and bring down the corporation as a result. It is to the credit of Bong and fellow screenwriter Jon Ronson that the animal rights faction is portrayed as equally exploitative of Mija and Okja as Mirando, with the group relying on deception in order to set their plan in motion.
Bong stages some inventive action sequences, such as a tense lorry chase sequence that features Mija hanging onto the roof in an attempt to free an imprisoned Okja and a later confrontation between the activists and South Korean police set to an unlikely soundtrack – John Denver’s “Annie’s Song“.
However, all of these would be in vain if the titular creature did not live up to expectations. Fortunately, Okja is one of the more realistically-rendered CGI characters to grace the big screen, the pot-bellied hippo/pig hybrid is provided with as much personality as the human cast. In particular, Okja’s early scenes with Mija show her carefree nature, splashing in the waters of a nearby lake to scare out fish for dinner. In contrast, later scenes show Okja being visibly distressed by the treatment at the hands of Mirando workers, allowing the creature to show a broad range of emotions for a CGI character.
The film is filled with great performances from Western, as well as Korean actors. Swinton for the most part portrays Mirando in the same over-the-top manner in which she played Snowpiercer’s antagonist. A similarly extreme performance can be seen from Jake Gyllenhaal, who practically chews the scenery as Dr. Johnny Wilcox, a TV nature host who becomes increasingly unstable throughout the film. However, the strongest and most subtle performance comes from young South Korean actress Ahn as Mija. She portrays Mija with a single-minded determination to save a creature that she not only considers to be a pet but also a friend.
Okja is a heartwarming tale of a girl’s search to find her best friend that also criticises the hypocrisy of the media and global capitalism – not something you would find in your average “family” film!