Noah Thompson’s review published on Letterboxd:
We finally become valuable when we are torn apart.
If you want to see a film where kids yell and beat each other up for the vast majority of the runtime, for a movie that also feels like two hours despite being only a little over ninety minutes, then hey, The King of Pigs is for you. Not a good movie, but not from a lack of trying. What I think this is trying to say about childhood trauma from relentless bullying and how the divide between the bullies and the bullied can permanently fuck you up as you grow up, there's something there. However, the kind of care that something as touchy as that subject matter would require in order to succeed just isn't here. Far too often, The King of Pigs will feel grim and disturbing just for the sake of it, this messaging of being wary how you choose to counteract violence and try to stand up for yourself getting lost in lackluster animation, shoddy writing, and mostly poor voice acting. Seriously, you know that thing you'll come across in older YouTube videos where the audio would spike whenever someone would yell a little too loudly? This animated movie has that. That kind of effect may actually add to the effect of something like a Filthy Frank video, but when you're trying to make this ultra-serious drama, it goes from distracting to aggravating pretty damn quickly. The last third of the film functions well enough in its plot and twists that it may leave you feeling you watched a better movie than you actually did, but I would be remiss to label this as anything but a mess and a misfire, even if there is potential beneath the surface. The film's writer and director would go on to make the stellar Train to Busan a handful of years later, so good for him being able to improve himself and his dramatic sensibilities.
4/10