BEFORE PARASITE, THERE was a pig. Two years before Bong Joon-ho became an unlikely household name with Parasite’s unprecedented commercial, critical and Academy-Award-winning success, the Korean filmmaker made one of the most idiosyncratic films of his career with Okja. Given it’s a CV which has also included an apocalyptic future-train (Snowpiercer) and a sea-monster that kidnaps children (The Host), that’s pretty darn idiosyncratic. Released on Netflix in 2017, Bong’s sixth film was a fable-ish tale of a 13-year-old girl named Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun) and her ride-or-die best friend named Okja, a giant, genetically modified super-pig. It is a strange, funny, exciting, profound cinematic experience — and like many films in Netflix’s vast catalogue, may not have enjoyed the whole hog of exposure at the time.
BFFs Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun) and Okja the giant pig having fun on their adventures.