Okja

Okja is an action-adventure film co-produced by Netflix and Plan B Entertainment. It was the first time for me to watch a foreign movie without a subscript, however it is very easy to understand what is going. This movie is about a group of self-defined environmentalists who created super pigs by a series of technique like gene mutation, hybridization. These super pigs were sent to different countries and grown by the local farmers. Mija is a young girl who lives with her grandpa in a mountain area of South Korea raising their super pig Koja.  Koja is Mija’s only friend who saved her life. Koja was sent to New York and focused to breed a new pig, and suffered from cruel treatment. Mija started her trip of rescuing her friend Koja.   

There was a lot chaos between Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the company which created transgenosis super pig. Okja was focused to breed a new pig and suffered a lot cruel treatment. The ALF posted the company’s inhuman behavior on the super pig in the company’s event of announcing the winner of super pig, which of course caused a much bigger chaos. At the end of the movie, Mija brought Okja from the company with her gold pig from her grandpa. When Okja and Mija left the slaughter, a couple of super pigs pushed their offspring out from the fence. Okja hid this small super big in her mouth, and took the small pig back to South Korea. Animal liberation is a very controversial topic, however, this movie did not promote either of the stands.

Mija was not depicted as an animal liberation supporter, and she saved only Okja and only because Okja is her only friend and Okja has saved her life. In the scene of buying Okja, the producer conveyed the idea that no matter what you believe and what you have experienced, you should respect other people’s legal property. The composition of the is very interesting in the end of the movie. Mija and her grandpa were having their meal within the square door frame, while Okja was looking at them from the square window frame behind them. People’s activities are limited within these squares which is also true in our real world.

The topic of animal liberation is also a topic of my other class which is more focused on the animal testing. There are many animal liberation extremists who burn the laboratory and threat the researcher’s own life or their family safety. It is hard to believe that a person who doesn’t care the human life would care about the other animal’s life. Due to the extremist, there only very few people stand out to talk about the benefit of the animal testing. People have their right to believe what is right for them, but they have no right to control other people’s believe and they should also respect each other’s believe. In this film, Mija respected the rule of the market. If she wants the pig, she has to buy it.

To be honest, I skipped some of this movie, but I still like this movie. The producers know animal liberation is a very controversial topic, so they just avoided to talk about this topic directly but promote the friendship between animal and human, which I enjoy most in this movie.