In a remote village on the island of Carpathia, a shy farm girl is raised to fear an elusive animal species known as the Ochi. But when she discovers a wounded baby Ochi has been left behind, she sets out on a quest to return him to his kind. A film by Isaiah Saxon, starring Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, Emily Watson, and Willem Dafoe.
The LEGEND of OCHI
Isaiah Saxon
(2025)
Yuri (Helena Zengel) lives on an island called Carpathia in the Black Sea, where most people make their living off the land. From childhood, she learns about dangerous wildlife like bears, wolves, and the usual threats that come with mountain living.
But there’s something else the villagers fear far more: a creature called Ochi that lurks in the mountainous forests, something they’ve been battling for generations.
Every evening at eight o’clock, as darkness falls, parents hurry their children indoors. That’s when the Ochis emerge from their mountain lairs, their haunting calls echoing through the valleys below. Yuri has never actually seen one of these creatures, but she has experienced it. When she was just four years old, the Ochis destroyed her family.
One night, Yuri joins her adoptive stepbrother Petro (Finn Wolfhard) and their Ochi-obsessed father Maxim (Willem Dafoe) on an Ochi hunt. Maxim leads a group of village boys: Ivan (Răzvan Stoica), Oleg (Carol Bors), Vlad (Andrei Antoniu Anghel), Gleb (David Andrei Băltatu), Pavel (Eduard Oancea), Tudor (Tomas Otto Ghela), and Edi (Eduard Ionut Cucu) into the dark forest.
The setup gives a vibe of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, with a single adult shepherding a band of children into perilous territory. But unlike Anderson’s film, these village kids remain largely in the background.
The group encounters a band of Ochis in the forest, giant gibbon-like creatures that seem just as startled and frightened by the human presence as the humans are by them. During the chaotic struggle that follows, one of the boys is attacked by an Ochi before the creatures scatter in different directions.
A mother Ochi hesitates to flee with her band when her baby, terrified by the gunshots and flames, scrambles up a tree to hide. The boys try to shoot the baby Ochi down, only forcing it to climb even higher into the branches. As morning breaks, the band of Ochis vanishes back into the mountains.
The next day, Maxim reminds the children that their parents have entrusted them to his care to help protect the village from the Ochis. Back at home, Yuri expresses her desire to see her mother, despite Maxim repeatedly telling her that her mother chose to leave them and doesn’t want her. When Yuri becomes visibly upset, Maxim asks her to go check on the traps. Yuri grabs her backpack and storms out of the house.
In the forest, Yuri discovers a baby Ochi with its leg caught in a bear trap. The baby initially grows agitated and growls when she approaches, but Yuri manages to free it from the trap. However, the baby Ochi’s leg is injured and appears to be broken.
Yuri hides the baby Ochi in her backpack and sneaks back into her room to tend to its broken leg with her first aid kit. She realizes that the baby Ochi is nothing like what she’s read about them in books. When the baby Ochi hears gunshots from the boys practicing outside, it starts shrieking. Yuri panics, knowing that if the others discover him, they’ll kill him.
She realizes she has no choice but to take the baby Ochi back to the forest. Outside, Petro hears the shrieking and follows the sound to Yuri’s room, just in time to see her climbing out the window with the baby Ochi perched on her shoulder. She tells Petro she’s taking him back to his family.
Written and directed by American filmmaker Isaiah Saxon in his directorial debut, The Legend of Ochi is a fantasy adventure film that creates a rich, fantastical world through original storytelling and character design.
Rather than relying on typical computer-generated imagery, Saxon uses puppetry to bring the Ochis to life, making them feel grounded and real, as if they were actual mythical creatures hidden from our world. The approach evokes Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, but with an even more lifelike quality that makes these creatures feel tangible and believable.
While the film boasts stunning visuals and breathtaking landscape cinematography, the story feels fairly predictable, almost as if it were made specifically for children. It’s hardly the first film to feature a creature that’s mistaken for a monstrous beast based on appearance alone, only to reveal they’re quite the opposite of what they seem.
The screenplay lacks the emotional core and magical spark that would elevate the film from merely watchable to memorable or exceptional. There are scenes where both the baby Ochi and Yuri make strange noises, as if they’re somehow connected or communicating with each other, but these moments fall flat. Rather than feeling moved by this supposed connection, I found myself confused and emotionally disconnected from what was happening on screen.
The LEGEND of OCHI premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on 26 January 2025. The film had a limited theatrical release in the United States on 18 April before expanding nationwide on 25 April, by A24.
