Okja (new film from Bong Joon Ho)

pixelburp

(IE, the fellow who made Snowpiercer)

It has been mentioned separately in a couple of other threads but I think it's deserving of its own thread TBH. Initial reviews seem to be fairly positive, and looks like it might be quite the bittersweet journey. Methinks there'll be less baby-eating this time than Joon-Ho's last feature )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjCebKn4iic

Sad Professor

I'm a big fan of Bong but I've heard mixed things about this. Some say it's very cinematic and should have received a theatrical release, others say it's unsubtle and clearly made for streaming. But I'm looking forward to seeing it.

pixelburp

Hmm, I wouldn't have called Joon Ho 'subtle' to begin with though: as fantastic as Snowpiercer(*) was, subtle it was not, very much the class dystopia writ large in broad strokes & grotesque make-up.

(*) Might be of interest to some that there's a TV version of Snowpiercer on the way; it's still only at the casting stage, but seems like it's ... *ahem* full steam ahead for now, pilot feedback notwithstanding.

peteeeed

its out at 4pm today on netflix

p to the e

Jon Ronson sharing script writing credits? Interesting. This looks like a cross between "My Neighbour Totoro" and Tony Jaa's "Warrior King"

ixoy

Just finished it and we both very much enjoyed it. It is indeed extremely unsubtle but it doesn't really matter - there's just the right blend of whacky (Gyllenhal is hilariously OTT) and drama.
It would work well on the big screen too but I don't feel I'm missing out when I've got a decent set up home and an idiot-free zone.

zoobizoo

I found it too long, quite boring and not particularly funny.

I didn't like any of the characters other than Mija and her grand dad. Jake was way too over the top. Tilda too unbelievable. Secretary just pointless. The sister seemed a pretty pointless inclusion. I don't need to like characters to like a film but these were just too annoying to watch



If I'd paid to see it in the cinema, I'd probably have walked out. Luckily I watched on Netflix and could skip through the faff.

Really surprised at the positive reviews so far.

johnny_ultimate

I liked it a lot, but that's with the condition that it's wildly uneven.

The Swinton-heavy prologue didn't work, but the Korea-set stuff is pretty great. Seo-Hyeon Ahn is delightful, and they struck the right balance with Okja (not too cutesy). That core friendship is well-handled without being overplayed, and the Seoul set action is endearingly manic and idiosyncratic.

The middle hour is all over the place. For all the good ideas, a lot of it doesn't land - Gyllenhall goes for broke, but the performance simply doesn't work. Ditto Swinton. The tone fluctuates wildly to mixed effect, and sequences feel drawn out where they really shouldn't be.

That said, the last 20 minutes or so are wonderful and really captured what Bong was trying to do. It's a suitably dark fairytale, where the nastiness undercuts the victories. The ending is beautiful and lyrical, but also artfully tainted by what came before. It's not subtle, but neither was Snowpiercer when it addressed similar subject matter.

As far as environmentally-conscious, anti-capitalist tales of girls and their giant pigs go, it's out on its own But even outside the concept, it's rarely less than its own thing, sadly too much of its own thing for decent stretches. But overall it's definitely an impassioned, socially-conscious subversion of a family film, and Bong directs the **** out of it. A mixed bag, but definitely felt more than satisfied when the credits rolled (FYI - there is a short epilogue after the credits)

Slydice

There was a lot they were trying to do. Yeah the scenes towards the end seemed like the ones they wanted to do the most with and they went for it.

Gyllenhaal definitely has a new character persona/style/acting thing he can point to having experience in.

Giancarlo Esposito played.. well.. Giancarlo Esposito and it was a good performance. I wonder could he make a good baddie in a Bond film?

I can see what they were trying with Swinton and the Mirando sisters and the business but it and the story to work around the company didn't feel solid. Mostly it was too lax, sometimes a bit overboard. I'm guessing it's a trade off they made to get the story done.

Oh! Don't miss the post credits scene. It has

Paul Danos character Jay (leader of the ALF) gets outta jail and the setup for another raid kicks off

JaMarcusHustle

Very hard not to turn this off every time Gyllenhaal is on screen. Just a ridiculous character, one of the most frustrating characters I've seen in movie recently.

Didn't care much for Swinton's character either.

And don't get me started on the neurotic secretary. There's a good film in here somewhere, but it's ruined for me by unnecessarily wacky "characters" who seem to be thrown in for tone adjustment and nothing else.

A very infuriating film that I'll go out of my to never have to watch again.

Nerdlingr

I loved it. Thought it was great. Jake Gyllenhaal's character was OTT but it didn't take anything away from the film for me. Loved everything else about it. Some very subtle funny moments. Has two of my favourite actors in it (Dano and Swinton). Didn't know anything about it or who was in it before i watched it, so was pleasantly surprised.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Watched it last night, TBH I dont see what all the fuss is about, Its certainly not a waste of your time, but its message is about as subtle as a kick in the face, and the contrast between Cohen brothers style offbeat wackiness and the genuinely upsetting scene where

The ALF watch Okja being mistreated the lab

just didn't work. In fact, I feel it could probably have benefited from having the 'humor' dialed back a bit.

Also, am I the only one who thought that Tilda Swintons sister was

going to be revealed as a sort of alter ego / split personality? it certainly seemed to be heading in that direction with the references to psychopaths and the way Giancarlo Esposito conducted his conversations with her.

At least I know now, that if they ever make a team fortress movie, Paul Dano in a balaclava was born to play the spy.

ozt9vdujny3srf

For me, the film was about looking behind the slick marketing operations of mass food producers (as represented by their caricatured figure heads), and depicting in gruesome detail what actually happens to livestock on its way to the supermarket. I think it was a really clever way to deliver that message to a mass audience who would otherwise never be inclined to learn about these things.

Tar.Aldarion

Loved this, great film. I think the person I was watching it with did too, it was hard to tell with their outright sobbing by the end. Thought Paul Dano was stellar.

Gyllenhall's character didn't make much sense to me until the lab scene, which I thought really made me understand him a bit more. A washed up TV star that is animal expert, zoologist, veterinarian etc that really did love animals to begin with.

He pointedly remarks about becoming the face of Mirando and who would have seen that coming? It probably rips him apart. In the lab he is supposed to represent workers in meat factories. Slaughterhouse workers have high rates of mental health issues due to their job.

He is drunk and combined with these mental health issues has guilt for doing what he does and now he has been sidelined as if he was nothing, it has pushed him over the edge.

He hates what he has become. Nothing holds his attention from the outset of the film, he is repressing things and becoming more of a caricature of himself.


On a side note I Loved the nods to things like the usual suspect with the coffee cup but more importantly the recreation of this iconic image of bin laden being captured when okja was, and this also brought home that Swanson was not in charge from the start http://i.imgur.com/o1nZwhW.jpg

I also loved where the subtitles did not match up with what was said in korean (when saying his name he actually really said that Mija should learn English, it creates opportunities), a meta reference to its themes of communication, understanding, and empathy for other cultures and species.

I'd like an ALF series. They were great in it, keeping it a bit lighthearted with the sombre message.

I take it okja can communicate in some way, what with her whispering by the end, I imagine people even speculate that she said that intimated that she was pregnant, either way she wanted to try and communicate. I also notice that at the end the family appear to be eating vegetables and no fish (he asks did she pick much instead of catch), the chickens have been freed from their cages. This was not really the message though, it was about considering others perspective and to take a look at what we do to others due to capitalism.

There is a scene after the credits btw.

BuyersRemorse

Well that was utterly dreadful.

To be fair, I was expecting the worst - Korean directors and Hollywood generally don't mix - but as Bong is one of my favourite filmakers, I reserved judgement until viewing. Started off well, in as much as you had Korean actors giving normal, balanced performances, and the titular CGI pig was reasonably done, though a bit rubbery at times. Then the Gyllenhaal appears and that was that. Swinton was bad enough, as she continues her race to the bottom to become the female Johnny Depp, but old Jake just rewrote the rulebook when it comes to OTT - Seriously the Mirando corporation could have used him as a global ham substitute instead of breeding superpigs. It doesn't help that Bong has covered the same ground to much better effect in previous films, so there's deja vu, mixed with the feeling that there's a much better film buried underneath the ludicrous tone. I'm tempted to blame co-writer Jon Ronson for the excesses, as the director didn't have any problem getting decent performances out of Western actors in Snowpiercer, and Ronson, with all those years spent interviewing fruitcakes and eccentrics, probably wouldn't have a clue how to write 'normal' or 'nuanced'. Thankfully Bong already has his next film in production, and it's 100% Korean.

Funny though, that a film about evil multinationals was funded by an evil multinational, who backed this only because they needed a flagship director to break the streaming market in Korea, which already has a healthy amount of indigenous content providers.