Okja: Movie Review

"Okja" is fun and undeniably charming with its very young but extremely strong lead actress Ahn Seo-hyun. The film may have issues when it comes to pacing and narrative development but the overall product has the remarkable hints of the great talent behind it.

In 2007, the new CEO of the Mirando Corporation unveils a 10 year contest wherein 26 of their super pigs will be given to 26 local farmers. They will try their best to breed the best super pig in a decade. A decade later, the best super pig hails from South Korea named Okja. But when Okja is suddenly taken away to America, one of her owners, a young girl named Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun) tries her best to get Okja back from the clutches of the Mirando Corporation who has dark secrets of their own.

"Okja" has that particular charm and quirk that only Bong Joon-ho can deliver. The film has that signature style that the world learned to love with "Parasite". Unfortunately, "Okja" lacks cohesion with its narrative and visual effects to be as outstanding as "Parasite". Nevertheless, the film is still an experience to behold. Leading the way was the youngest actor in the film with Ahn Seo-hyun. Her character was surprisingly strong and the crazy antics that her character goes through the entirety of the film were totally unexpected and totally bad-ass. She really makes this film have that cool factor that we did not see happening. The other actors had strong performances as well but lacked the character development that we would have hoped for. On top of the great acting, another strong point of the film was Okja and the visual effects used to make the super pig come alive. When the effects work they really had us in awe. But here's the thing, the film was inconsistent in this aspect. We're not sure what happened but around half of the time, Okja just looked fake and cheap while half of the time he looked extremely real. This is also the same sentiments we have about its narrative. There's this sense that it wasn't as smooth and clean as we wanted it to be. It had its head-scratching and totally unbelievable moments.

Rating: 4 reels





Why you should watch it:
- extremely strong acting
- the camera work was amazing

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- the story has some issues
- visuals effects are inconsistent