It’s baffling how often moviegoers who consider themselves politically savvy fall for assaults on their principles when the offense is disguised as “entertainment.” This week’s example is Okja, a new movie by Bong Joon-ho, the Korean director beloved by fanboys and hipsters for making genre retreads. Okja starts as sci-fi fantasy: a global food corporation breeds an animal for maximally efficient consumption, but this “guinea pig” — Okja — becomes a pet for a Korean farm girl, Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun), who is determined to prevent its designated slaughter.
Millennials may not remember Lassie, Bambi, or Old Yeller, but their fond memories of, say, Nemo the cartoon fish predispose them to this sentimental provocation about a helpless animal endangered by the very capitalists who engineered him in the first place. (Children don’t perceive irony, but childish adults do.)
So after the mawkish, drawn-out introduction of Mija’s feeding persimmons to Okja — he is essentially an oversized CGI pork product with the body of a pachyderm and the face of a Golden Retriever — the movie returns to its opening satirical critique of capitalism. Shrill executive Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) announces a “Best Super Pig Contest” to launch her new food brand to 7 billion consumers. Mija is forced into protective mode, but her personal cause is hijacked by political activists: the ALF (Animal Liberation Front).
Okja isn’t really a family movie (unless you’ve raised Red Diaper babies). Bong’s specialty is converting trendy social values into genre pastiche. His 2012 The Host used a sea monster for a Greenpeace PSA. His Snowpiercer remade Kurosawa’s Runaway Train into an Orwellian allegory. These nonsensical genre mash-ups have been acclaimed by viewers who are unaware that once upon a time action movies could offer a moral about human behavior without dispensing blatant agitprop.
Last year, Stephen Chow’s wondrous The Mermaid became the most financially successful film in China’s history but barely caused a ripple in the U.S. Chow took the alien thesis of his 2008 CJ7 (which was an expansion on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) and made a human-based, adult comic fantasy about threats to cultural heritage within modern China’s class-divided society. Chow’s populism demonstrated the advance that has so far eluded Steven Spielberg’s recently politicized filmmaking. Now Bong shows Spielberg and Chow how to pander, with Okja’s unabashed mix of ridicule and sentimentality.
The best scenes in Okja belong to Swinton, part of her latest twin-twit routine (as in Hail, Caesar!) as rival daughters of a tyrannical tycoon. In Okja, her ruthless but insecure Lucy Mirando wears a Gwyneth bob, while her twin sister Nancy Mirando wears a Hillary bob. Swinton spoofs her own art-chic with Lucy’s pink, blonde, girlish couture and bucktoothed lisp (her pronunciation of “morons” is worthy of Lily Tomlin). Lucy’s rant against the New York Times and Slate shows that Bong and co-writer Jon Ronson grasp the connection between corporate and media inanity. There’s also savvy satire of the ALF, whose leader (comically pious Paul Dano) claims: “We inflict economic damage on those who harm animals. We never harm animals or non-animals, that is our credo.” Yet, in true Millennial fashion, he never recoils from violence. Bong sides with the judgmental vegan-anarchists, but he also exposes their malice.
Alexander Rogers
Snowpiercer was good.
I didn't really apply any political thought to it. It was just a neat adventure through a really elaborate train
Jackson Reed
paul dano was in it, your opinion is discarded
John Bennett
While Bong sides with the judgmental vegan-anarchists, he also exposes their malice. But this edgy ambivalence doesn’t last long. Bong’s seriousness becomes maudlin and freakish when Jake Gyllenhaal as a mad scientist has Okja drugged and monstrously violated. There’s even a concentration camp metaphor and a Sophie’s Choice moment for extra maudlin flavor. The outrageousness peaks during a promotional street parade in which the crowd of consumer-idiots observes the eco-terrorists’ attack on Okja and Lucy’s ad campaign — the gawkers just stand by like the dupable public in Stephen Colbert–Jimmy Kimmel audiences. The film’s mix of childhood sentiment, action-film violence, business satire, animal-rights fervor, and progressive sarcasm comes full circle.
Bong wants us to get worked up — both snuggly and agitated — about a Genetically Modified Organism, but Okja’s plot itself is modified for people who don’t know they’re watching propaganda so long as it pushes their buttons and makes them feel virtuous.
Benjamin Hill
The propaganda of Okja rose to almost comical heights, when a bloated Steven Seagal in a "make america great again" hat started "karate chopping every God-damn nip in this country"
Whether Bong intentionally misused the slur "nip" or the rant was ad-libbed by Seagal is still unknown.
Nicholas Phillips
Mija was cute!
Blake Campbell
That look in her eyes, you just KNOW
Michael Lewis
Thought this was Armond White... damn what a good writer/critic
Grayson Gutierrez
>Dano will never protect you from bullying paparazzi like this
I mean, it obviously tried to push the whole "The rich are literally eating the poor" nonsense, but in the end when the poor win, it literally causes the deaths of EVERYONE.
And don't think for a second that the last two survivors made it more than 150 feet before that fucking polar bear ate them. Because that polar bear fucking ate them.
John Peterson
whatever the political message, it failed. because i ate meat straight after watching the movie. I did find it entertaining enough. Jake Gyllenhaal was horrible.
Gabriel Brooks
>Bong
Oliver Harris
>t’s baffling how often moviegoers who consider themselves politically savvy fall for assaults on their principles when the offense is disguised as “entertainment.” It's a method that works. Why do you think the Jews keep an iron grip on Hollywood?
Isaac Ortiz
Many Asian Americans were hoping Steven Yeun to be a strong character with positive AM representation but the movie has done the complete opposite. Yeun is part of the AFL, a quasi-terrorist organization whose goal is to rescue Okja. First of all, Yeun is not the leader of said group. The leader of the group is Jay, played by Paul Dano, who is portrayed as kind, caring, intelligent, calm, and brave. Yeun on the other hand is a bit of an idiot. There are multiple scenes portraying him as the idiot comic relief, examples being: trying to break a chain with pliers which the White female unlinks with a simple click, unable to translate Korean correctly, and accidentally waterlogging a video file in a ziploc bag.
Grayson Wright
the message wasn't anti-meat it was supportive of farmers and natural free range raised meat. it was against the meat industry, and biologically enhanced animals/mistreatment of cattle
Aiden Lopez
spot the anime main character
Robert Wilson
I'd kill and eat that thing
Luke Howard
Video games confirmed for superior art form
Caleb Myers
>Video games >art form I thought we've debunked this myth already?
Ethan Collins
They've been in MOMA
Eli Anderson
>They've been in MOMA So have I, doesn't make me art
Gavin Allen
that look is malice white guys please dont be fooled because asian faces always look soft and round
William Mitchell
yes it does
Luke Lopez
>I am art
Aiden Rivera
This is an interesting argument and thread OP, but why not post the essay in whole once you've finished it? People here clearly aren't interested in remaining on-topic, or putting in as much effort to craft something as well-thought out as your own posts.
I can't say I agree with your points entirely, but they're an interesting take on Okja, and perhaps the rest of Bongs movies. You've definitely identified what he's doing in his films that often goes unnoticed by most audiences, but you seem overly preoccupied with Bong's 'specialty', almost as if it defines his uniqueness or competence as a director, which it doesn't. It's only one of many things that he does in his line of work.
I'm not going to argue that you shouldn't judge Okja for it's social and political messages, as they're a large part of the film. But, if you're looking at Okja solely through a socio-political lens, (or at any film for that matter) then I think you're missing out on a lot.
Austin Garcia
Well tell them to stop having such round, soft, kissable faces.
Brandon Powell
The pig gets raped and the camera does a close-up of a cgi tear.
Michael Wilson
hi r3ddit
Robert Edwards
>bait in 1080p >300x169
Charles Cook
Implying people know the difference
Brandon Phillips
All art is political. A film having a political viewpoint is not a valid criticism of the film. This reviewer takes exception with a film pushing a political message. Why?
He doesn't actually dispute logically why the message is wrong, he just accuses those receptive to it of being communists, by way of red diaper babies, (oldest trick in the book) and only liking the movie because it makes them feel virtuous.
This is a facile review.
Jayden Diaz
It's strange that South Koreans exploited the situation to promote Korean actors, directors and locations.
Jonathan Sanders
Am I getting an Oscar for this?!?!?!??!?!?!?!
Hunter Lee
>political movies are bad if they don't fit my agenda Go to bed armond
Brandon Cooper
the host was a nice movie tho
Thomas Allen
"No!"
Sebastian Rodriguez
The South Korean director exploited the vacuum left by cape kino universes
Bentley Garcia
>Old Yeller
Now I'm picturing Mija having to put down a mortally wounded Okja with a shotgun.