Just got through watching this and I wanted to jot my thoughts down while they're still fresh. Reading MooCriket's comment above, I agree; a 6 is a good score. If I could sum this film up it would be this: problematic but not offensively so. I wasn't exceptionally eager to see it this in the first place, as films like Stoker and Snowpiercer have taught me otherwise, but I root for both Park Chan Wook and Bong Joon Ho every time they release something as I think they're some of the finest talents in film currently. However, like the films I mentioned, this suffered from what these East/West co-productions have: culture clash. What may have worked or have been permissible had it been in its native tongue, when Westerners are brought in to it and made to perform as the Koreans would've done, it doesn't work. At least not for me, anyway; it's way too jarring. Paul Dano and Steven Yeun do a decent job of pulling it off and it's a testament to them and their skills at acting, but everyone else in the Western cast hams it up (huh-huh) way too much. Gyllenhal and Swinton chew up scenery and spit it out like chaw every time they show up.
Beyond the issues I have with the dialogue, I also found the narrative a bit lacking. Characters are a bit flat and one-dimensional and just seem to move in and out from one place to the next and, though much of Joon Ho's films carry comedic elements, I did find that some of the humor did undercut the drama at times and made what was there seem ham-fisted. I feel that there was also a message meant to be made in this but it comes off as satire more than not. Yes, seeing these hippo-cow-dogs go to slaughter and treated like objects is a sorry sight, but this film is nowhere near effective enough to stop people from eating steaks and porkchops. Certainly not me, anyway.
For what is good about this film, it (like Snowpiercer) is getting Bong Joon Ho's name out there in the mainstream and, hopefully, getting more people interested in his other films and then they can see what a film from him is like when he's at his best. It's muddled in this film with all the other stuff but there are moments in Okja that do show what a visionary and talented director he is, especially when it comes to staging/framing/composition and what he can pull from his actors.
He didn't direct it but another film Bong Joon Ho was involved with (wrote and produced) that's on Netflix and worth watching is a film called "Sea Fog". It gets a bit too "action-y" with the resolution, I feel, but it's a solid thriller nonetheless.
