The eponymous Okja is a genetically modified pig the size of a hippo, organically (and lovingly) reared by an elderly Korean peasant farmer and his granddaughter, Mija (An Seo Hyun). Now the project’s parent company wants to show off its prize specimen and launch its latest food product, but animal-rights activists mean to disrupt the show and save Okja from the slaughterhouse.
Here Bong’s idiosyncratic imagination and gift for suspense meets the anarchic, acerbic wit of writer Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare at Goats). Filmed, in part, in British Columbia, this is a big, broad, propulsive movie, positively Spielbergian in its mixture of CGI spectacle, sentiment and action. You’ll love the loyal Okja and loathe Tilda Swinton in a double role as the Mirando twins, the unacceptable Janus face of 21st-century capitalism. Then there’s Jake Gyllenhaal acting his socks off as a peculiarly ripe media personality.
Okja has only screened theatrically in British Columbia once before — at VIFF in 2017. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to pig out!
Sunday’s screening will be introduced by Ernest Mathijs, professor, Cinema Studies, UBC
Ernest researches cult film, genre cinema, David Cronenberg, and European horror. He literally wrote the book on cult films — several of them in fact: 100 Cult Films, Cult Cinema, The Cult Film Reader, and The Routledge Companion to Cult Cinema (co-edited with Jamie Sexton).
Most summer movies ask you to check your brain at the door, but that’s not the case with this haunting action-adventure by the dazzling South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho. Mija, played by 13-year-old Ahn Seo-Hyun, is a fearless farm girl whose best friend, an SUV-size “superpig” named Okja, is grabbed by a multinational agribusiness. Building to the most disturbing climax in summer movie history, Bong’s bighearted blockbuster could change the way you think about eating animals, treating animals, and the whole food industry.
John Powers, Vogue
It’s a sublime tale of the value of humanity, and the horrors we often have to suffer through to hold on to that.
David Sims, The Atlantic
Bong Joon-ho
Tilda Swinton, An Seo Hyun, Jake Gyllenhaal, Byun Heebong, Paul Dano, Steven Yeun
South Korea/USA
2017
In English and Korean with English subtitles
Indigenous & Community Access
Credits
Producer
Dooho Choi, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Woo Sik Seo, Lewis Taewan Kim, Bong Joonho
Screenwriter
Bong Joonho, Jon Ronson
Cinematography
Darius Khondji
Editor
Yang Jinmo
Production Design
Lee Ha Jun, Kevin Thompson
Original Music
Jaeil Jung
Also in This Series
Memories of Murder
Parasite director Bong Joon-ho's police procedural is the centrepiece of our retrospective and arguably his masterpiece. Certainly, among serial killer movies this one is on a par with Zodiac and The Silence of the Lambs, but more politically astute.
Barking Dogs Never Bite
Bong's first film is a genial black comedy involving the deaths -- accidental and otherwise -- of several dogs in a Seoul apartment complex. Saturday's screening will be followed by a talk by Distinguished Professor Dal Yong Jin.
Okja
Bong #6: his wackiest movie, centered on a genetically modified super pig the size of a hippo. Raised by a Korean peasant farmer, prize specimen Okja is called to New York to launch its new food product. But animal liberationists mean to disrupt the show.