Legend of Ochi, The

image for Legend of Ochi, The

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Not suitable under 11; parental guidance to 12 (violence, scary scenes, themes, coarse language)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Legend of Ochi, The
  • a review of Legend of Ochi, The completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 3 March 2026.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 11 Not suitable due to violence, scary scenes, themes and coarse language.
Children aged 11–12 Parental guidance recommended due to violence, themes and coarse language.
Children aged 13 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Legend of Ochi, The
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild themes, violence and coarse language
Length: 96 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Yuri (Helena Zengel) is a young girl being raised by her father Maxim (Willem Dafoe) on a remote island in ‘Carpathia’. Yuri has been told that her mother left her when she was small. Yuri has an adopted brother called Petro (Finn Wolfhard) who was orphaned at the age of 14 and taken in by Maxim. Maxim trains the two, along with a group of youths, to fight the Ochi, an ape-like creature that lives in the forests. Yuri believes it was the Ochi that destroyed her family. The group go on regular hunts into the forest, armed with rifles and knives.

Yuri is checking the traps one day, when she finds a baby Ochi caught by one. She releases the Ochi and takes it home. She then decides to reunite it with its family and defies her father to do so. She takes off into the forest, alone with the baby Ochi, and along the way they are shot at by frightened people. The baby Ochi bites Yuri in fright, which leaves her weak and dying. She falls down a hole and is rescued by her mother, Dasha (Emily Watson), who takes her back to her cottage. Meanwhile, Maxim and the boys set out to track Yuri, with Petro leading the way on horseback. What transpires changes everyone’s lives and their relationship with the Ochi.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Fantasy; Child abandonment; Poverty; Boy-soldiers.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • Maxim and his troop fire rifles at the Ochi in the forest. A creature knocks over one of the boys and another one knocks Yuri over. The forest is set on fire.
  • Yuri runs at the baby Ochi with a stick. It’s not clear if she is trying to kill it or trying to free it but it gets away.
  • Petro enters Yuri’s room and sees the Ochi. He aims his rifle at it but she pleads with him to let them go.
  • Yuri and the baby Ochi go into a supermarket for food but a woman sees the Ochi and screams. The young man on the checkout picks up a rifle and starts shooting at them. Yuri steals a car from outside the supermarket and a man chases after them. A wheel falls off and they end up in a ditch.
  • Dasha kills a bat and cooks it as a cure for the Ochi bite. She tells Yuri that Maxim chopped her hand off when she was bitten by an Ochi.
  • The boys start trashing Dasha’s cottage. She hits out at Maxim with a weapon.
  • Maxim grabs Petro by the throat and throws him to the ground.
  • The boy soldiers have their rifles aimed at the Ochi family. Maxim tells them to hold their fire but one of the boys shoots anyway.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • The setting in the forest is particularly scary. It is dark and foreboding with eerie screeches being heard.
  • The baby Ochi is very cute with large round eyes, a blue face and short pointy ears. The grown Ochis are quite large and scarier.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • Yuri and Petro live in a hovel-like shack, dirty and littered. Outside, pigs roam and drink from puddles.
  • Maxim drives a jeep into the forest, hunting Ochi. The radar beeps loudly when the Ochi are spotted.
  • Yuri and Petro both look terrified when they hear the Ochis howling.
  • The baby Ochi’s leg is bleeding from the trap and it groans in pain.
  • Dasha injects Yuri with a huge needle and she screams.
  • Maxim dresses in Viking armour to track Yuri.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, including the following:

  • Maxim, training the boys and Yuri to be soldiers, is scary. He also gives Yuri a knife and says it belonged to his father and was very special. It’s ‘sharp’ and ‘a killer’.
  • Yuri sees a devil dancing in a creature’s eyes.
  • Maxim tells Yuri that her mother never wanted her.
  • Yuri goes into the forest to check the traps. She hears screeching and treads warily. She finds the baby Ochi who hisses at her. She puts in some vampire teeth and hisses back at the Ochi. They stare at each other for a while.
  • The boys practise rifle shooting, shooting at cans.
  • Yuri and the Ochi hide in a refrigerated compartment in the supermarket. The Ochi bites her in fear. Her arm bleeds and she tries to heal it with leeches but she is quite weak.
  • Dasha tells Yuri that taking the baby Ochi would be a mistake and could lead to a very unpleasant death.
  • Yuri and the Ochi fall off a raft and are swept into a fast-flowing river.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Dasha smokes cigarettes.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Piss-shit
  • Hog shit
  • Oh God!
  • Ass-bags
  • God-damn
  • Bastards
  • Stupid
  • Holy shit.

In a nutshell

The Legend of Ochi is a grim tale which fortunately has a happy ending. It is filmed using puppetry and old-style story boards, which makes it quite unique and different to today’s regular CGI movies. The movie is, however, quite intense and dark with some heavy themes of child abandonment and boy-soldiers. It is therefore not suitable for under 11’s and more suited to teens and adults.

The main messages from this movie are to have empathy with fellow creatures and to stand up for what you believe in.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Learning to tell truth from lies.
  • Strength of conviction.
  • The bonds between mother and child.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Maxim lied to Yuri about her mother and other tales. Yuri eventually comes to disbelieve her father and runs away from him. Parents could talk about resources for young people in troubled relationships.
  • Training young boys to be soldiers is never a good thing. Parents could talk about the consequences of teaching boys to fire guns.
  • Yuri and the baby Ochi steal from the supermarket because they were hungry. Does that make it morally ok?