Review of Okja / 옥자, directed by Bong Joon-ho

I’ve seen almost all of Bong Joon-ho’s movies. In college, one of my highlight experiences as a broke kid in New York City, trying to make it at a fashion school (spoiler: I ended up hating it and never pursued a job in industry), I scraped together the money to go to a screening of Parasite at IFC Center.

And, because I’m a weirdly lucky person, I ended up getting to see Bong Joon-ho, Song Kang-ho, and Park So-dam give a talk and Q&A before the screening of the movie. Ever since then, I’ve been riding on a high when it comes to Korean cinema, although that already was an area of focus for me.

Which led me to Okja. I had seen it before I saw Parasite, and while I can appreciate the elements of the movie that make it a typical Bong Joon-ho movie, I honestly was not a big fan of the plot. As it turns out, as someone who spends way too much time ruminating about the movies I like, I was right about my hunch.

Let’s get into the review before I ramble too much!

When Mija’s beloved super pig is taken away, she ventures away to rescue her before it’s too late.

Here’s the core contextual information for this movie: Lucy Miranda has become CEO of Mirando Corporation in the year 2007, taking over for her twin sister. She comes on camera to make a big announcement: the company has made the concept of super pirgs, and 26 are due to be sent around the world to live with farmers.

In ten years’ time, they will reconvene, and the farmer with the best big will be deemed the winner. A decade passes, it’s 2017, and our protagonist Mija lives on one of these farms with her grandfather and the super pig Okja.

Okja and MIja are best friends, and Okja even saves Mija from falling off of a cliff in one early scene. But things are about to be completely shattered for the two, as some corporate people from Mirando, specifically the spokesperson Johnny Wilcox, show up at their doorstep.

Okja is declared the winner of the super pig competition, and they’re going to take her to New York City. Mija is extremely upset for obvious reasons here, and her grandfather tries to make it better by giving her a solid gold pig figure. That doesn’t make it better.

Mija decides to run away and ventures to the capital city of Seoul. There, she sees Okja being put onto a big truck, but then she ends up crossing paths with the Animal Liberation Front. Mija and Okja get away into the city, but are rescued by the ALF members after the police come after everyone.

The English speaking member has another translate, and she’s told they’re going to put a recording device in Okja’s ear to capture everything that Mirando Corporation does to the animals. Mija asks for them to be returned, the member mistranslates, and they think she agreed so they go ahead with the plan.

Okja is then retaken, and Lucy pays for Mija to come to New York as a PR attempt to save their image. In the meantime, Okja is taken to a lab where she is forced to mate with another super big, her flesh it taken off, and then people then eat her cooked flesh. As the ALF watches this, the member who was translating, K, reveals he lied about Mija’s consent. He’s kicked out of the ALF, while Mija is miserable with the Mirando people.

The head of the ALF comes to meet her, claiming they’re going to rescue Okja. During the parade, Okja is so battered and blinded that she attacks Mija, but she calms the pig down.

While the ALF leaks the footage, turning public support away from them, Lucy’s twin sister takes control and has everyone arrested. The slaughterhouse is set to have full production, the remaining ALF members and Mija search for Okja.

As she’s prepared to be killed, Mija shows the worker a picture of her with the baby pig, and he stops. When the twin sister arrives, Mija tries to barter with the gold figure, and the twin sister agrees.

The ALF members are arrested, but Mija is free to go. As she prepares to go home, some parent pigs slip their baby to Okja, and Mija and Okja return home.

Overall Thoughts

Okja is a different kind of movie from Bong, and while I didn’t hate, I didn’t love it either.

There are some very interesting thematic notes to pick out about the meat industry, corporations, and how some people will lie for their ethics (I found K lying about Mija’s consent to be an interesting power dynamic when it comes to the art of translation, as he asserts his will over his).

I don’t know that if I would watch this kind of movie again, but I’m glad I watched it at the end of the day. There’s immense value to movies like these that some people will close their eyes to from the beginning, but be curious about it if it sounds interesting to you!

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