Cannes loves its controversy, whether it’s about Woody Allen or high heels on the red carpet. This means the film is in English and Korean. Minority rule has reached the highest court in the land. As a director, Bong’s great skill is soulful social satire, juxtaposing the absurd with surprisingly touching moments that help his films retain a kind of humanism that can sometimes be lacking in satirical works. There was no surprise (and a lot of laughter) when people booed at the appearance of the Netflix logo before the film. Title: Okja (2017) Director: Joon-ho Bong Writers: Joon-ho Bong and Jon Ronson Reviewed by Li . She runs away from the farm on a mission. Bong Joon-ho juxtaposes those scenes with the terrifying, grotesque animal plants and research labs. There are childlike, wondrous moments that reinforce the bond between Mija and Okja. Would traditional studios, with their proclivity for blandly appealing blockbuster fare, even have the guts to gamble on a film like Okja? Wonderstruck is an excellent one, from Carol director Todd Haynes. Shot in two languages and three countries (South Korea, the U.S. and Canada) for a budget reportedly around $50 million, Okja boasts visual effects by Oscar-winner Erik-Jan De Boer and a sumptuous Panavision-style digital look courtesy of Darius Khondji, the French-Iranian cinematographer renowned for his repeat engagements with David Fincher, Michael Haneke and Woody Allen. Cannes Film Festival 2017: news and movie reviews, Cannes 2017: Netflix’s Okja is a bonkers corporate satire starring Tilda Swinton and a superpig, Cannes's famous standing ovations and jeering boos don’t actually mean that much, Miranda July’s enduring love for the weirdo in all of us, One Good Thing: Vintage Nintendo games are good vibes made playable, One Good Thing: The trick uniting the internet’s funniest videos, Here’s how much you had to make in 2017 to pay more income tax than Donald Trump. He is a caricature of animal TV hosts like Steve Irwin and Jack Hanna. Festival bosses have now agreed to bar any future films that do not qualify for local cinema release. Typically for Bong's work, Okja works as both fast-moving action comedy and allegorical fable grounded in heavy-handed critique of business ethics. Okja has excellent performances across the board. Costume designers: Choi Seyeon, Catherine George Scripted by Bong, then adapted into English by British author and screenwriter Jon Ronson (Frank, The Men Who Stare at Goats), Okja is peppered with lost-in-translation lines and clunky tonal shifts. Gyllenhaal continues to prove his immense versatility. It will be streamed on Netflix in the west, but get a theater release in Asia. Chip in as little as $3 to help keep it free for everyone. Their idyllic life is interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal), a goofy TV personality and the corporate spokesman for Mirando Corp. Okja releases on Netflix in the US and a number of other countries, including France, on June 28. But they treat animals with respect. Terms of Use | This is the second year in a row in which Paul Dano starred in a satirical indie movie with a strange premise featuring fart jokes that will no doubt have a cult following. The movie kicks off in 2007, when the Mirando Corporation, founded by the father of CEO Lucy Mirando (Swinton), is in search of a serious image revamp after committing some light atrocities against mankind. The pair exists in harmony with the environment. Then it was fixed, and the movie started over. The result is kind of a masterclass in how vocabulary can be twisted for insidious ends. by A superbly staged truck chase through Seoul, climaxing with Okja smashing up a subterranean shopping mall to the ironic strains of John Denver's sappy pop classic "Annie's Song," provides one of the film's set-piece action highlights. Get our newsletter in your inbox twice a week. Ahn Seo-hyun, who plays Mija, absolutely owns this film. Inspiration Behind M. Night Shyamalan's Old Revealed Along with First Story Details, The Rock Welcomes Aldis Hodge to Black Adam as Hawkman Casting Is Confirmed, Constantine and Zatanna TV Shows Are Happening at HBO Max with J.J. Abrams. America keeps making the same mistakes over and over. The bombastic new CEO, Nancy Mirando (Tilda Swinton), announces with great flourish the dawn of a revolution in the pork industry. Here’s what one week of online school is like for my 7- and 5-year-old kids. He straddles this line with deft aplomb. This year the controverse du festival kicked off early, when two Netflix films were selected to play in competition, and then met resistance from French theater owners since the films aren’t slated for theatrical release in France. Distracted by her grandfather, Mija returns home to discover that Mirando has repossessed Okja. An ungainly mix of benign monster movie, action comedy and coming-of-age fable, Okja marks South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's contentious debut in the official Cannes competition selection. 118 minutes. The false link between Amy Coney Barrett and The Handmaid’s Tale, explained. All rights reserved. New Okja Trailer Is E.T. Cast: Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, An Seo Hyun, Byun Heebong, Steven Yeun, Giancarlo Esposito, Lily Collins, Yoon Je Moon, Shirley Henderson, Daniel Henshall, Devon Bostick, Woo Shik Choi She has two roles in the film. The production of cheap animal protein becomes difficult to stomach when we peek behind the curtains. Bong's unorthodox creature feature is already a focus of Cannes controversy after French industry body CNC protested the festival's inclusion of films destined to bypass domestic theaters altogether. Mija and her grandfather are meat eaters. Despite their minor roles, Giancarlo Esposito and Shirley Henderson also bring welcome flickers of Shakespearean nuance as scheming courtiers in Mirando's corporate queendom. Ten piglets are sent to ten farmers around the world. Whoops. The Hollywood Reporter, LLC is a subsidiary of Prometheus Global Media, LLC. Mija was only 4 when Okja joined the family, and the pair grew up together frolicking in the woods, each the other’s caretaker. Bong Joon-ho has delivered an incredible, masterful film. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Movieweb. It is a thoroughly repulsive character. It is a thoughtful, visceral satire of the corporate meat industry. The captive beast takes on metaphorical meaning as a kind of trophy for competing characters with conflicting self-interested agendas. Mirando has their grand prize winner. What starts out as cute and heartwarming becomes disturbing. But I love him. Production companies: Plan B Entertainment, Lewis Pictures, Kate Street Picture Company, in association with Netflix Will Netflix's Okja Be This Summer's Stranger Things? Only Meji's innocent love for Okja is presented as pure and sincere. He also introduces other factions that want Okja for their own purpose. Production designers: Lee Ha Jun, Kevin Thompson Here’s what you need to know about the most important races. Okja is an animal, a beloved pet with intelligence and feelings. But killing and eating them seems to be fine. Paul Dano is a weird, weird guy. Her American-accented performance is a caricature, but thankfully dialed down from her overcooked Nanny McPhee grotesquerie in Snowpiercer. Okja isn’t perfect; it falls down when the absurd and the serious ricochet back and forth between scenes, making it hard to track with the film’s tone. Typically for Bong's work, Okja works as both fast-moving action comedy and allegorical fable grounded in heavy-handed critique of business ethics. Sadly, Jake Gyllenhaal opts for much broader slapstick mugging as Mirando's boozy sidekick Dr. Johnny Wilcox, a former TV zoologist whose reputation went into a nosedive after he signed on as a paid corporate shill. This effects-driven ensemble piece is a tonally uneven affair, cluttered with tone-deaf dialogue and crudely sketched characters that recall Luc Besson at his most obtuse. The idea is that each superpiglet will be bred according to local farming practices, and in a decade they’ll be judged in a globally broadcasted contest helmed by Mirando’s new face, television personality Dr. Johnny Wilcox (a sweaty and unhinged Jake Gyllenhaal, pitching his voice into every register imaginable). It may be largely destined for small screen consumption, but it looked lavish and cinematic in Cannes. Millions rely on Vox’s explainers to understand an increasingly chaotic world. … Cannes 2017: Netflix’s Okja is a bonkers corporate satire starring Tilda Swinton and a superpig, We now know what Trump was trying to hide by holding back his tax returns. It is a must see. EMAIL ME TWITTER Editor: Yang Jinmo Meets Goonies with an Eco-Terrorist Twist. Okja uses the innocence and determination of a teenage girl as the vehicle for enlightenment. With a burning sense of injustice only the young can feel, Mija refuses to take the loss of Okja lying down. Cinematographer: Darius Khondji The biggest surprise for me was Jake Gyllenhaal. In ten years time, Mirando will award the best super pig a grand prize, then bring it back to America for mass production. But it is a technically impressive and boldly original statement from a rising Asian auteur with increasingly international ambitions. They’re not actually connected. They play all day, then at night, Mija snuggles up to Okja's huge belly. Stephen Dalton Privacy | (I was on the orchestra level.) Bong—by depicting Okja as an amalgam of a dog, a pig, and an elephant—insists that Okja exists beyond the movie screen. Her only friend is the eponymous Okja, a cuddly 6 ton "super piglet" from a genetically modified new species that seemingly combines elements of hippopotamus, pig and devoted pet pooch. One of those little piggies was sent to a mountain farm in South Korea. As Bong notes in an interview with The Guardian, Okja’s dog-like playfulness and pig-like fate are meant to shine a light on our differential treatment of domestic and food animals, a societal inconsistency as arbitrary and unjust as human supremacy. The somewhat bizarre event is oddly fitting for Okja, which is every bit as weird — and on the whole as wonderful — as you’d expect from the director of Snowpiercer and The Host (easily my favorite monster movie of all time). Cherubic, moon-faced big-screen novice An Seo Hyun stars as Mija, a 14-year-old orphaned girl living with her grandfather in mountainous farm country in South Korea. Making her second film with Bong, this time with her own co-producer's credit, Swinton gives good brittle diva here, all sparkling surface gloss and seething neurosis beneath. While their intentions may be noble, the tactics used certainly require scrutiny. I've been really pumped for Okja since I saw that first trailer for Netflix. So another surge of coronavirus cases seems likely. In the film's muddled moral schema, human exploitation of animals for naked profiteering, political virtue-signaling or corporate image enhancement are all suspect. We take for granted the ease of our food … Screwball comic clowning is plainly not his forte. And so it should. Okja is a jarring story on many levels. Music: Jaeil Jung For the first seven minutes of the film — as Tilda Swinton, in a blond blunt-cut wig and braces, introduces herself as the new CEO of pharmachemical giant the Mirando Corporation — the noise grew louder and louder, with loud rhythmic clapping from both levels of the theater. It wasn’t anti-Netflix protests: The theater was just projecting the film wrongly, with the top of the screen masked so that it cut off Swinton’s head at one point. Screenwriters: Bong Joon-ho, Jon Ronson The Supreme Court is about to hit an undemocratic milestone. If factory farming is an ugly product of the corporatization of American culture, so is the twisting of activist movements — from environmentalism to feminism to political ideologies — into corporate lingo, ideals cynically transformed into sales slogans. Director: Bong Joon-ho FACEBOOK Audiences have never seen him like Dr. Johnny. | Cookie Settings. Okja extends a more standard anti-factory farming stance in order to skewer the absurd ways in which corporations co-opt the language of environmental and localist movements to reel in consumers. Channeling Jim Carrey at his most grating, Gyllenhaal is wasted here. Okja is a South Korean and American production. The film ramps up violently in the second and third acts. South Korean Director Bong Joon-ho delivers a thoughtful, visceral satire of the meat industry with his adventure thriller Okja. The festival announced a new policy (beginning in 2018) in response, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings voiced his disapproval, and at the opening press conference on Wednesday, Will Smith feuded with Pedro Almodóvar over it. In Okja there are psychopaths, for sure, but there are also people for whom practical concerns get in the way of ideals: Dr. Johnny is a self-proclaimed “animal lover” who finds himself in bed with Big Farming, and Jay can’t quite keep his crew of idealistic activists to their total no-harm stance. The meat industry will undoubtedly attack this film and its message. It's the kind of odd story telling that I love the most. Her journey is indeed a profound one. And Bong cleverly extends this to show how it affects cultures far beyond the borders of the US. Her favorite person in the world is Mija (Ahn Seo Hyun), an orphan living with her grandfather (Byun Hee-bong). He is blown away by the size and health of Okja. The Mirando representatives arrive on the mountain, where Dr. Johnny proclaims Okja the best of the superpigs. Okja is actually scheduled for a wide big-screen run in South Korea, plus more limited U.S. and U.K. outings in parallel with its global Netflix launch June 28. An international co-production made by Brad Pitt's Plan B outfit, among others, Okja is Bong's biggest project yet. We were all catching on to what was going on. But as the film continued, the noise went on, particularly from the theater’s upper mezzanine. But Okja is also a rare breed of movie: it boasts a multi-hemispheric setting and cast, extended use of two languages, and the distinction of combining action, arthouse, and political satire in one funny, biting, disturbing, often kind of adorable package. But Mija's blissful prelapsarian worldview is cruelly ruptured when Okja is suddenly hauled away to New York by her creator, corporate CEO Lucy Mirando (Swinton), who is seeking to erase her company's dubious track record with eco-friendly, feed-the-world, ethical-capitalist publicity stunts. But now, the time for the competition has come. © 2020 The Hollywood Reporter Sign up for the But such minor flaws did not prevent Bong's previous adventures in socially conscious sci-fi fantasy, notably The Host and Snowpiercer, from earning critical raves and healthy box office numbers. I think every youngster who sees Okja will identify with her. The race to shift the balance of power in the US Senate is fiercely contested. Okja isn’t perfect; it falls down when the absurd and the serious ricochet back and forth between scenes, making it hard to track with the film’s tone. Embarking on an audacious mission to rescue the beloved beast and bring her home, Mija joins forces with a gang of dapper but ethically conflicted animal welfare activists led by Jay (Paul Dano) and K (Steve Yeun). For example, Mija uses Okja to help her fish, but she only takes the big one for supper; throwing the little fish back in the water. The hell that is remote learning, explained in a comic.