Buoyed by the cult success of dystopian actioner Snowpiercer, South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho has been gradually assembling a starry lineup for his next feature, Okja.
After barrelling around an icy wasteland as the monstrous Deputy-Minister Mason, Tilda Swinton will reunite with Joon-Ho for the sci-fi flick, rubbing shoulders with Jake Gyllenhaal as a zoologist, Paul Dano, The 100‘s Devon Bostick, Lily Collins, Byun Heebong, Shirley Henderson and, now, The Walking Dead stalwart Steven Yeun.
Word of Yeun’s casting comes just as Okja officially slinks into production. Hoping to spotlight “the beauty that can exist between man and animal, and also the horror between them,” Joon-Ho’s intriguing creature feature will set up shop across Canada, the States and in the director’s home of South Korea.
Penned by Jon Ronson (Frank, The Men Who Stare At Goats), expect the filmmaker’s piece to revolve around Mija – played here by Seohyun An – a young girl “who must risk everything to prevent a powerful, multi-national company from kidnapping her best friend – a massive animal named Okja.”
Part creature feature, part intimate drama, Bong Joon-Ho will be hoping Okja can sidestep the post-production woes that blighted Snowpiercer back in 2013. Acting as an early ace in the hole is Netflix and Plan B, Brad Pitt’s production banner, who snapped up the project before the turn of the year. Perhaps more than anything, it shows that the streaming service has invested a lot of faith in Joon-Ho’s feature film, and with a starry cast now in tow, the director is well on his way to repaying that resounding vote of confidence.
