Okja 4K 2017 Ultra HD 2160p

For ten carefree years, little girl Mia has watched and cared for her pet Okja, a giant mutant pig living in her home in the mountains of South Korea. But everything changes when the powerful Mirando Corporation kidnaps Okja and transports him to New York, as the head of the company, PR-crazed Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton), has big plans for Mia's best friend.

The determined Mia decides by all means to save the critter and begins her mission. But the situation soon becomes more complicated, as various groups of people get in the way: capitalists, demonstrators, and consumers, all of whom seek to take over Okja, while Mia only wants to bring the animal home.

Deftly mixing different genres as well as humor, gripping plot and drama, Korean director Pong Joon-ho ("Through the Snow," "Mother") tells a kind story of human-animal friendship, ultimately offering a vivid and ambiguous view of the world that can resonate with each of us.

Okja 4K Review
In search of a cure for world hunger, the Miranda Corporation genetically bred a new breed of pig - animals the size of hippos are easy to care for, undemanding to eat, and their meat tastes better than any delicacy. One problem - people do not trust genetically modified products, so the company launched an unprecedented campaign of falsification, the altered pigs are called the newly discovered Chilean breed, with research purposes, they are sent to different parts of the world, so that in 10 years people could be convinced that there is nothing wrong with the new breed. The giant pig called Okcha had been living on a highland South Korean farm for ten years, but when the time came to take her away from her owners and let her go out for bacon, steaks and chops, it turned out that fourteen-year-old Midgie was extremely attached to Okcha. She is so attached that she is ready to cross half of the world just to save her clumsy friend from the butcher's axe...

At the Cannes premiere, "Occhia" was booed by the audience, but it was not because of the quality of the film, but because the organizers of the show launched a tape with the wrong ratio of sides of the frame
It is generally accepted that the comedy genre today is experiencing bad times - the stories of entertainment pictures noticeably simplified, the creators of such films rely on cheap gags, jokes below the belt or outright stupidity, multiplied by the unassuming viewer. There is no need to talk about satire, much more subtle, deep and inventive comedy level - the time of "Dr. Strangelove", "Rascal" or even Ryazanov's "Garage" seems to have gone irrevocably. However, the pulse line of the satirical genre has not yet turned into a straight line, a quite noticeable shake-up for viewers, critics, and even fellow filmmakers should be the picture by South Korean director Pona Joon-ho "Okcha," a Netflix video service project that, unfortunately, hit the big screens only as part of film festivals.

"Okcha" is an exemplary satire, but there are not only its pluses, but also significant disadvantages, which, however, is typical for pictures that aim for something grandiose. And the scope of the picture is truly royal, the authors are happy to "kick" international corporations, consumer society, environmentalists, brutal police and unscrupulous TV reporters, and do it really fun, "Okcha" - a funny movie, despite the regular glimpses of violence in the frame. The jabs are handed out on their own merits: human rights activists are indeed sometimes ready to fight for peace until the world is destroyed, mega-corporations easily go for any kind of forgery, collusion and deception just to make a profit, consumers easily succumb to self-deception, forgetting the simple human feelings of affection, friendship and love.

Except that Bong Joon-ho expresses his criticism in a somewhat naive, almost childish format. "Okcha" looks like a mix of Pixar and Disney cartoons, and children's movies of the level of "Free Willy", "Flipper" and other "Dolphin Stories": a girl loves her pet, but they separate her from it. Horror, anger, regret, but no acceptance--go ahead, save the pet! Along the way, Miji, an angular South Korean girl subtly resembling Lila or Moana, is bound to meet comic characters who try their best to look funny. A TV host, for instance, does the occasional antics, the chief animal advocate smashes his negligent sidekick's face in blood, the main villain caricatures a gold figurine, and the occasional philistines in the frame resemble empty vessels, easily filled with one emotion and another. It's all amusing, but somewhat naive and even infantile.

The writer Jon Ronson, the director and author of the idea Bong Joon-ho, had specially invited him to work on the English-speaking characters and to make New York, where half of the action takes place, recognizable.
However, the finale of the movie turned out to be very "adult", even "old man's" - the main character agreed to be content with not much, chose quiet domestic happiness in the bosom of a few relatives instead of saving the world. In this, perhaps, lies its own irony, a satire on our understanding of the pictures of this genre, which makes us believe in the victory of Good over Evil. "Okcha," on the other hand, is not about victory, but about readiness for compromise and agreement, about the superiority of the personal over the common or alien; the girl in the film fights fiercely for her favorite pig, but easily accepts the death of all other animals.

The criticism of awkward plot twists and deliberately thick strokes where subtlety is required does not, however, apply to the acting - what is great in "The Occasions" unreservedly and with any criticism of the script is the characters. Tilda Swinton is undoubtedly good as two sisters with dissimilar characters, Paul Dano is brilliant as the leader of aggressive "greens", Giancarlo Esposito is elegantly assembled as usual, Jake Gyllenhaal is delightfully funny and almost unrecognizable in his fluffy mustache. Special words of admiration are reserved for the young Ahn So-hyun - the girl got to play many scenes with the later computer-drawn pig, but in not a single frame is it impossible to see any falseness in the actress' emotions and movements.

"Okcha" was deservedly showered with applause at the Cannes Film Festival screening and praised by critics - we really haven't seen such scathing and accurate satire in a long time. But it is impossible not to be struck by the simplicity of form and the monochromaticism of the authors' ideas. Let us not be afraid to sound like grumpy old men and note - everything used to be better. The pigs were smaller, but the humor was thinner. And the characters were not bought so easily.