The Legend of Ochi 4K 2025

The Legend of Ochi was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival, which is quite unusual, as it is not often that a project suitable for family viewing appears in the realm of independent American cinema. However, the film's artistic merits are obvious—the mythology of the world and the creatures that inhabit it has been invented and thought out from scratch, the acting is confident (including that of the main character), and the color choices are meaningful.

The Legend of Ochi is like if Cheburashka decided to fly to Pandora but landed in Romania, and a local director decided to make a family film about him in the style of Wes Anderson.

Seriously, though, The Legend of Ochi is the feature debut of music video director and graphic designer Isaiah Saxon, who has a very interesting biography on Wikipedia—it's clear why he and A24 studio found each other at some point. Saxon not only directed the film, but also wrote the screenplay. And, to be honest, I have more questions for him as a playwright than as a director. If, in terms of directing, The Legend of Ochi can be criticized for its occasionally flagging energy and stumbling tempo, then the film's script raises even more questions—the threat (and the so-called alternative factor) could have been more acute, the conflicts more open, there could have been more twists and turns, and in general, I would have liked a more eventful plot. But the film's shortcomings are more than offset by its visual solutions, music, and overall humanistic message. The last two points are very much in the spirit of Steven Spielberg, for whom debutant Saxon has obvious reverence. And you can understand why. Who doesn't love E.T., Empire of the Sun, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence?

After the screening of The Legend of Ochi, some girls left with tears in their eyes. This is also a Spielbergian “theme” — combining the emotional and uplifting, but without cheap manipulations in the spirit of “he died, cry.”