Back-to-back dictatorships coincided with strong pro-democracy demonstrations. The film will be set in Korea and New York. Mija and Okja spend most of the day living a laid back life roaming the forests and just enjoying their quaint existence in the hills. "I wanted to crumble these borders and make the audience feel uncomfortable. With their newest member Kim Woo-shik, a former driver for Mirando Corporation, they plan to disrupt a major Mirando shareholders meeting. In explaining where parts of the superpig go, then, Nancy is commenting on the deeper crime represented in Okja: All parts of the colonized can be repackaged for consumption. He is the only Korean member shownthe only person of color at all. We never hear exactly what she's whispering, but the tight closeups of Okja's mesmerized eye show us that she's listening intently and gets the gistthat the girl's words matter and make sense even though they don't speak the same language. The first and foremost, most obvious one, even as stated by Joon-ho Bong in a couple of interviews as well would be Capitalism, that seems to be the driving force of virtually everything in the 21st Century. East Asians are often stereotyped as clueless touristsanother manifestation of the perpetual foreigner, albeit from a different angleand no item of clothing embodies the tourist more than the fanny pack. The bonkers action-adventure from Korean filmmaker . Read More in Explainers: Prisoners | Se7en| Reservoir Dogs. Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun) has grown up alongside her superpig Okja (voiced by Lee Jeong-eun), with whom she has a close relationship. Then, Mija murmurs something into Okjas ear, grounding her and hauling her back from a sea of traumatic memories. Because the movie is in both Korean and English and it is primarily set in South Korea and New York City, one of its most prominent themes is that the world is shifting towards global unity, for better or worse. After the ALF sees the footage, K reveals that he lied to the rest of the group about Mija's support of the plan. Okja is a gentle giant, bred to tread softly upon the earth - to "consume less feed, produce less excretions", but (most importantly) to "taste fucking good". And thats our best superpig. But when Mija picks up the phone, she gets caught in an endless string of automated messages while the receptionist places an actual call to security. Why is it still alive? Jim Carrey-style clowning is not, to put it mildly, this actor's most comfortable mode, and his fidgety, braying, often mincing performance is so misjudged that it destroys scenes that should have been unsettling or touching. In the penultimate scene, Mija shows that she has mastered enough English to negotiate with Nancy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) as she desperately tries to rescue Okja, who is about to be slaughtered. Without K as an interpreter, Jay has to do the work of learning and using Korean. Video-streaming giant Netflix has released Okja, a film that could be the world's first ecological action movie. As revealed in an opening flashback, Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton),the CEO of the Mirando Corporation, seeded the world with prototype pigs and announced that when they'd all spent ten years growing to maturity, the company would choose the finest environment in which to raise them, the better to provide the world with cheap but high-quality meat and meat products. Bong looked to a variety of real animals for inspiration. Unlike English, Korean does not distinguish between singular and plural. And there was an environmental message to his 2006 breakout hit The Host, which told the story of a mutated fishy creature that wreaked havoc in the streets of Seoul. However, since it is vital that we continue with our mission, we will return your equipment to you after its completion. Mija: [holds up photo of herself with Okja to a Spanish-speaking factory line worker], Worker: [hesitates as he holds a bolt gun to Okjas temple and looks from the photo to her]. To the laboratory?]. She agrees to spare Okjas life, and as they are walking out, in a scene that is literally all kinds of heartbreaking, she sees hundreds of other super pigs on the row for slaughter and nowhere to go. All edible, except the squeal. The conclusion is almost absurdthere would have been no peril at all if Okja had simply been purchased from Mirando in the first place. The film is about a young girl who raised a genetically modified "super pig" (the titular Okja) and, after she is taken to the United States, goes on a mission to rescue her from mistreatment at the hands of the meat industry. Mundo: Theyre leaving! They fucked up! K isnt a neutral and passive converter of meaning. [If you dont give us your permission, we wont go through with the mission], Mija: . She is initially resistant but is forced to attend the ceremony on the pretext that Okja will soon be converted to food. And there are many upsetting images of animal abuse, particularly towards the endnot as harsh as what you find through a YouTube search, but nevertheless unusual for commercial cinema. The world outside Mija goes on per usual, the hundreds of super pigs lined up for slaughter in Mirandos labs and slaughterhouses would still meet the blade, be packaged into foods and sold at supermarkets where millions would consume them, and Mirando would continue to grow in its ruthlessness and power. Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Rachel Min Park, who provided English translations for lines originally in Korean, as well as invaluable linguistic and cultural insight. At the centre of the story, we have a multinational corporate that knows no ethical bounds when it comes to selling more: they need to taste fucking good, as reported by Lucy Mirando when asked about her plans with respect to the super pig program. 9, 10, 20, 21 and 40 are considered the luckiest numbers for the name Okja. The Mirando scientists are dying to run tests on her in their underground lab. Farmers inject semen into a sow's vagina so that she will continue to produce piglets. [6] On November 10, 2015, it was picked up by Netflix and Plan B Entertainment with a budget of $50 million, with production starting in late 2016 for release in 2017. Rescue Okja, replace the black box, and let Mirando retake Okja. As a child growing up in Seoul, Bong became a fan of Hollywood movies he saw on the Armed Forces Korea Network, the U.S. militarys TV channel. Indeed, according to Netflix's algorithms, I shouldn't even like itit's only a 56% match based on my viewing history. Okay. She uses the colonizer and imperialists customs as a means to an end. [looks down at ID badge] Thats your current employer, correct? This is why we rescued Okja. The answer to which we dont know yet. [shrugs] They fucked, not me. Rather than letting himself feel the full horror of being complicit in Okjas abuse, Jay offloads that guilt onto K and strips him of his power and resources, as symbolized by his equipment. "Compared to my experience of visiting a real-life slaughterhouse, the film scenes were much milder and were expressed in a toned-down manner.". Yeun said the character "speaks to the island we live on": He was a character written for Korean-Americans. K: [We We umm fight people that bo bother animals] What was the second thing you said? In an attempt to correct their wrongs, Jay sneaks inside Mijas room and tells her that they plan to play videos of Okjas mistreatment at Mirandos hand while she is on stage, and advices her not to look back, and rescue her and Okja while at it. For K, translation is now a polyphonic process, one that involves multiple voices, multiple languages, and multiple configurations. or King Kong. A jump to ten years later, and we see one of the super pigs, Okja, being raised in the hills of South Korea by a young girl named Mija and her farmer grandfather. Kim and a news anchor speak in English on a 24-hour US news channel. In ten years time, the best superpig will be selected to represent the product at a lavish ceremony in New York. It looks exactly like the black box on her ear, right? meaning it needs to increase production . You employ new and unproven methods. What of the others lined up in the slaughterhouses whose wails still echo in my ear, long since I watched the film? His nonchalance alarms Mundo, who is riding in the passenger seat. A bittersweet story about animals and humans, it centres around a lovable super-pig that's touted as an organic, ecologically-sound "revolution in the livestock industry". True and the Rainbow Kingdom. Away from the trauma of the capitalist machine that seeks to dissect us into packageable, digestible parts, safety can exist. But the arrival of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) shifts his concerns. <p>Symbolism. Blond: Thats right. English has a similarly symbolic role in the latter movie, where it serves as a salient class marker. It doesnt seem to be an accident that K has a thick gyopo (overseas Korean) accent and is played by a Korean-American actor. Translation is not an automatic process, and it is not even remotely close to being perfected by machines. In parasites the stone is symbolic. Mija! Scott wrote, "Okja is a miracle of imagination and technique, and Okja insists, with abundant mischief and absolute sincerity, that she possesses a soul. Mija asks them to return her to the mountains but K purposely mistranslates and tells them Mija agrees. Ks character deeply embodies the conflict of negotiating a hyphenated identity in an assimilationist society. Come to think of it, when he says universal language, his deliberate intermixing of genres is quite understandable. K shows Mija photos of the lab where Okja was created as Jay explains that everything shes been told about the superpigs is a lie. Easily sensed by even a casual viewer, Okja is not your casual viewing Saturday Netflix feature. Principal photography began on April 22, 2016, in Seoul, South Korea. If you have seen Okja, which I am assuming you have since you are here, you will agree when I say that it isnt simply tough putting Okja under a single genre or even a dual genre, its much more of an impossible task, although one that wed happily undertake and be defeated by its impossibility. S. Qiouyi Lu writes, translates, and edits between two coasts of the Pacific. Byun Hee-bong as Heebong This is why we need to stick to the mission. K and Jay continue to speak over Mija until they are forcibly removed from the conversation. The film competed for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. K: . Okja. A visibly disturbed Mija decides to go to Seoul where Okja is currently, to soon fly to New York. But at a point in movie history where entertaining movies often stand for nothing and films with something to say keep forgetting to entertain us, this film's balancing act is remarkable. Dove symbol. [pockets gold pig and puts sunglasses on again as she walks away with her entourage] Make sure our customer and her purchase get home safely. K: I dont know. From this moment on, you are no longer a member of the ALF. Director: Bong Joon-ho Writers: Bong Joon-ho, Jon Ronson Cast: Ahn Seo-hyun as Mija . It also comes with a cool font generator tool. Big as a Buick and with a buck like a bronco, the giant gray pig named Okja is a force to be reckoned with. Not many . Working with a rough draft of the story, Ronson helped develop the English-speaking characters.[8]. After a brief intro to the science behind the "breeding . Ojkas ending, even though complete in itself, leaves enough room for Joon-ho Bong or anybody else to take the story forward. Picture this: you're deep in the wilderness, surrounded by towering trees, jagged mountains, and icy rivers. Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman is one of 2018's most important films, with an ending that is at once shocking and all too inevitable. Very nice. Choi Woo-shik went on to collaborate with Bong Joon-ho again when he played Kim Ki-woo Kevin in Parasite. To minimize PR damage to the company, Lucy pays for Mija to come to NYC to reunite with her pig. Okja was directed by Bong Joon Ho and displays similar themes to his later film Parasite. But Commonly Okja is ( )+( )=. This thing is worth a lot of money. There is no need to wait for Hollywood to catch up. "I wanted Okja to be cute. The same can also be said for director Joon-ho Bongs entire filmography, nearly. "It is reasonable to fear the potential disasters and dangers that genetically-modified foods may bring," Bong said. It is one of the most experimental films Netflix has ever worked with, an almost E.T like fairy tale set in the grim real world of today, and in the hands of the gifted Joon-ho bong, this genre melding film rises above its socialistic preachy vices to deliver a film that is equally engaging, and might I say, whimsically entertaining as well. There is a definite advantage when you have Rian in the writers room - and Okja survived!" Its point-of-view won't be to everyone's liking (I can see Fox News Channel getting a solid week's worth of programming from the fact that Netflix helped bankroll a blockbuster anti-meat picture). 0:47. Mirando, meanwhile, is a more straightforward manifestation of the brutal capitalism and consumerism espoused by the United States. An all-star cast including Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Steven Yeun, and Jake Gyllenhaal is led by An Seo Hyun as Mija, a South Korean girl growing up on an Edenic mountainside with her grandfather and best . Pleasure doing business with you. "[28], "Sofia Coppola, Todd Haynes, Michael Haneke, Bong-Joon Ho & 'Twin Peaks' Lead 2017 Cannes Film Festival Line Up", "Netflix Backs Bong Joon-ho's 'Okja' with $50 Million", "2017 Cannes Film Festival Announces Lineup: Todd Haynes, Sofia Coppola, 'Twin Peaks' and More", "Bong Joon-ho, Netflix and Darius Khondji join forces for Okja", http://www.newsweek.com/2017/06/30/okja-jon-ronson-veganism-heroism-corporate-harm-626829.html, "Okja Begins Filming with Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal", "Bong Joon Ho's Okja Starts Filming with Tilda Swinton", "The Predator, Okja, Death Note Filming Dates Revealed", "Okja: exclusive images from Netflix's 2017 thriller starring Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal - NME", "Cannes Lineup: Todd Haynes, Sofia Coppola, Noah Baumbach, 'Twin Peaks', "Cannes Apologizes For 'Okja' Screening Technical Glitches", "Cannes: Netflix's controversial 'Okja' gets booed for technical snafu", "Netflix's 'Okja' Booed at First Press Screening in Cannes", "Cannes apologises after technical problems and booing disrupts Netflix film Okja", "Cannes: Netflix's 'Okja' Premiere Gets Four-Minute Standing Ovation After Press Screening Snafu", "First Teaser for Bong Joon-ho's Okja, Coming to Netflix", "Every Netflix Movie in the Criterion Collection", "The 10 Most Influential Films of the Decade (and 20 Other Favorites)", "Review: In 'Okja,' a Girl and Her Pig Take on the Food Industrial Complex", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Okja&oldid=1138372563, Swinton also plays Nancy Mirando, Lucy's twin sister, the cruel former CEO of the Mirando Corporation, This page was last edited on 9 February 2023, at 09:14. They leave, and Okja is recaptured. "We create psychological border-lines to avoid discomforts, so we separate our views of animals," Bong said. Cautionary tales are not new to Bong Joon-ho's audiences, who are familiar with his style of weaving hidden messages into the cinematic narrative. As Mija and Okja are escorted away, a pair of super pigs push their newborn to Okja to hide it and take it away. Nancy: [bites pig to test gold] Hmm. You are self-reliant, confident, and energetic.". The pig, of course, "was important, because pigs are very sophisticated and clean," he . . Okjas ending is no happier than say, Schindlers Lists ending is. ], K: . "Those we perceive as pets and the ones we place in our shopping carts are the same animals but we choose to separate them.". When Mija learns that Okja is being taken away to New York, she goes to the Mirando office in Seoul to plead . Lucy Mirando (in Okja, 2017). [12] Bong has called Okja "a very shy and introverted animal. 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