The missed opportunity of Okja

The Netflix film Okja from South Korea feels like a missed opportunity. The movie is both entertaining and provocative yet anything but subtle: There are good guys and bad guys and not much space in between (nor, w/ one minor exception, does any character evolve over the course of the film). The plot: huge manufacturing conglomerate announces a new product, a genetically engineered pig, which it launches with a campaign: selected farmers from around the world will raise the baby pigs over the next 10 years; corporation will select a "winner" for a big ceremony 10 years hence in NYC. (Tilda Swinton plays the CEO in a hilarious over-the-top performance.) W/ the aid of a totally goofy animal-show celebrity host (Jake Gyllenhaal), they select a pig from S. Korea as the winner; the young girl who has grown up on her g-father's farm w/ the eponymous pig is distraught that the pig will be sent off to America. She pursues the pig, which is soon hijacked by a militant animal rights group, and complications follow as everyone follows the pig to NY for the grand ceremony and the inevitable denouement. OK, not subtle, but there's a lot of humor and a strong message: Anyone who watches the long slaughterhouse scene near the end of the film will think twice before the next BLT. The missed opportunity is that this could have been a really good PG, family-friendly film - which would entail scrubbing the dialogue (there's a lot of swearing, esp among the activists), toning down the violence (the beat-up following the attack on the grand ceremony could be less graphic), and some kind of parental warning before the slaughterhouse scene. As it stands, the movie is probably too harsh for children and a little off-putting for adult viewers, who rarely go for girl-and-her-favorite animal, anthropomorphic films such as this one.