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.
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.