The Legend Of Ochi (12A)

Maxim lives in a secluded village on the island of Carpathia with his painfully shy daughter, Yuri, who he largely ignores to concentrate on training boy soldiers to hunt down and kill the reclusive Ochi. Carpathians are raised to fear the Ochi - they took Maxim's wife Dasha - and villagers comply with a strict curfew between 8pm and 6am. During a walk in the forest, Yuri discovers a baby Ochi caught in a trap and releases the injured animal. She pledges to return the creature to its mother.

LondonNet Film Review

The Legend Of Ochi (12A) Film Review from LondonNet

Growing up in a cinematic age before digital wizardry seamlessly melded computer-generated characters and flesh-and-blood counterparts, my fondest memories were reserved for ingenious practical effects that magically brought fantastical creatures to life on the big screen. A stranded visitor with a glowing heart in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial; a flying white luck dragon in The Neverending Story; a menagerie of otherworldly denizens of David Bowie’s Labyrinth; the lovable Ewoks in a galaxy far, far away…

First-time writer-director Isaiah Saxon recaptures that crafty filmmaking spirit with state-of-the-art puppetry and handmade matte paintings in a charming fantasy adventure that follows a young girl on a quest to return a helpless creature to its family. The Ochi of the title are adorable forest-dwelling beasts that communicate using high-pitched chirrups and chirps. They are blamed for attacks on cattle and supposedly spirit away unfortunate villagers at night. The creature design suggests an inquisitive hybrid of Gizmo from Gremlins and Gelflings from The Dark Crystal and one adorable infant Ochi shepherds an emotionally repressed teenage heroine across the Rubicon to womanhood in a little over an hour and a half.

The Legend Of Ochi looks far more expensive than its impressively low $10 million budget and Saxon and his collaborators fill the screen with wonder. Some of the storytelling and characterisation are equally lean, but Saxon’s nostalgic influences are joyfully evident. The ending owes a huge debut to Steven Spielberg’s alien who successfully phoned home.

Maxim (Willem Dafoe) lives in a secluded village on the island of Carpathia with his painfully shy daughter, Yuri (Helena Zengel), who he largely ignores to concentrate on training boy soldiers to hunt down and kill the reclusive Ochi. Carpathians are raised to fear the Ochi – they took Maxim’s wife Dasha (Emily Watson) – and villagers comply with a strict curfew between 8pm and 6am.

While many sleep, Maxim’s makeshift militia hunts down monsters under a cloak of darkness. During a walk in the forest, Yuri discovers a baby Ochi caught in a trap and releases the injured animal. “I’m taking him home,” she defiantly informs adopted brother Petro (Finn Wolfhard) and Yuri treks into the wilderness to reunite her furry companion with its mother.

The Legend Of Ochi is a glorious throwback to family-friendly escapades from the 1970s and 1980s, when filmmakers couldn’t rely on a computer hard drive to realise their wild imaginations. Zengel is endearing from the first moment Yuri cowers on screen, gradually coming out of her shell as she learns to communicate with the Ochi and, literally, finds her voice. Dafoe and Watson offer strong support but Wolfhard’s protege is surplus to requirements beyond acting as catalyst to drive the plot forward.

– Sarah Lee