The Legend of Ochi

An animal species known as the ochi have been attacking people, destroying crops, and causing general destruction to a remote village on the small island of Carpathia. Maxim (Willem Dafoe) has taken it upon himself to lead every young boy on the island to hunt and kill the ochi before their chaotic conduct ruins any more Carpathian livelihoods.

Maxim’s daughter Yuri (Helena Zengel, News of the World) doesn’t share her father’s kill or be killed rational towards the ochi. So when Yuri discovers a wounded baby ochi she takes it upon herself to take him home even though she has to risk her life to do so.

The Legend of Ochi is the first feature film from Isaiah Saxon. Saxon was a character designer for Marcel the Shell with Shoes On and writes, directs, and produces The Legend of the Ochi. The fantasy adventure film was shot in Transylvania, the Apuseni Mountains, Balea Lake, on the Transfagarasan road, and in Romania. The film utilizes in-camera puppetry, animatronics, CGI, and matte paintings while the baby ochi was a puppet operated by seven performers. The Legend of Ochi had a modest $10 million budget.

The screening of the film saw a short introduction by Isaiah Saxon stating that the majority of the effects in the film regarding the ochi being brought to life on-screen were all done in-camera and that the film took six years to make. Six years seems like a really long time to make a film like this even with Saxon performing triple duty on the film.

The ochi are, for the most part, a marvelous aspect of the film. They look phenomenal and the baby ochi is adorable. He looks as if somebody threw a monkey, Gizmo from Gremlins, and Grogu from The Mandalorian in a blender. Everything being done in-camera mostly pays off as the ochi never look like they weren’t there interacting with the actors.

David Longstreth’s score is the boisterous MVP of the film. The music of the film is always booming with bellowing strings and makes every cinematic sequence and every plot point of the film feel like the film’s most pivotal aspect solely because of how grandiose and superb the soundtrack is.

Evan Prosofsky’s cinematography is also a valuable asset to the film. The Legend of Ochi is a very grainy film leading one to believe that it was either shot on film or filtered in a way to make it look that way. The film is gushing with beautiful scenery featuring majestic forests and snow-capped mountain tops. The matte painting aspect isn’t surprising as several backdrops look like they were painted, but also adds to that in-the-middle-of-nowhere beauty the film embraces from the start.

But that’s where The Legend of Ochi will likely divide audiences. While the puppetry is mostly an extremely welcome part of the film, you never really believe that the ochi aren’t just puppets. The way they move or don’t move (the baby ochi’s hand has no life whatsoever despite several close-ups) isn’t entirely natural or is done in a way that seems to be hiding performers.

The story feels like you’ve experienced it before. Yuri’s interactions with the baby ochi are straight out of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Meanwhile, Maxim’s desire to slaughter the Ochi while Yuri has a desire to help them and let their species flourish is straight out of How to Train Your Dragon; Yuri’s mother Dasha (Emily Watson), even similarly abandons Maxim and Yuri as Hiccup’s mother Valka. Its slow pace and colorful visuals also give The Legend of Ochi a slight Wes Anderson vibe.

There isn’t an ending to the film. Instead, the credits roll right when Yuri finishes what she set out to do. There’s probably a bit more to it than that like something about two families being reunited and becoming one, but it isn’t entirely satisfying. Apart from a few leg injuries in The Legend of Ochi, nothing tragic occurs. Yuri thinks Maxim is dumb and wants to spend all her time with this weird little hairy thing she just made. Maxim is kind of dumb with his Don Quixote armor and insistence on singing along to everything that comes on the radio except for death metal.

For the most part, The Legend of Ochi is a magical adventure brimming with wonder. The film has a terrific score and the puppeteering is solid. But the film lacks character development (Finn Wolfhard is in this for no reason) or a proper resolution and the story collapses on itself thanks to its simplistic nature.

The young “Yuri” (Helena Zengel) has been brought up to be very wary of, and to hunt ruthlessly, the Carpathian Ochi. These are red, gorilla-like, creatures that inhabit the forest high above the home she shares with her father (Willem Dafoe) and “Petro” (Finn Wolfhard). Her dad blames these creatures for just about every crime in the book, but more especially for corrupting her now estranged mother “Dasha” (Emily Watson) and is determined not to rest until they are all just pelts. Whilst she is tending to one of their numerous traps one evening, she discovers a young creature which she decides to set free and return to its family. When her father reads the fairly abrupt and angry letter she has left him before setting off, he flies into a rage and assembles his cohort of children to pursue her. Can she reconcile the baby with its family and, as importantly, can she reconcile herself with her mother and perhaps even her father, too? It’s quite a decent looking film this, but with neither Wolfhard nor Watson really featuring much it is left to the competently engaging Zengel and some affecting furry animations to carry the story for it’s overlong ninety minutes. Dafoe overacts throughout, and he also looks like he has raided one of Werner Herzog’s costumiers too as he traipses about the mountain in a suit of armour that would not have looked out of place in “Aguirre, Wrath of God”. The “aww, bless” aspects of story fizzle out very quickly and once we have readily grasped the premise that mankind needs to respect nature and it’s other creatures then the plot becomes another dysfunctional family drama that disappoints. It will satisfy fine on the television at Christmas, and might even spawn a cuddly toy or two, but as a feature film it’s a beautifully shot, but lacklustre, effort.