The New Film Couldn't Be Stranger Than the Science Fiction Psychodrama It's Inspired By
Aegean surrealist filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos specializes in extremely strange movies. The narratives he creates are weird, for instance The Lobster, a film where singletons must partner up or risk being turned into animals. Whenever he interprets someone else’s work, he often selects basis material that’s pretty odd also — more bizarre, possibly, than his cinematic take. This proved true with 2023’s Poor Things, a film version of the novel by Alasdair Gray delightfully aberrant novel, a pro-female, open-minded reimagining of Frankenstein. Lanthimos’ version stands strong, but partially, his unique brand of weirdness and the novelist's balance each other.
His New Adaptation
Lanthimos’ next pick for adaptation similarly emerged from unexpected territory. The basis for Bugonia, his newest project alongside acclaimed performer Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean genre stew of sci-fi, dark humor, horror, satire, dark psychodrama, and cop drama. It’s a strange film not primarily due to its subject matter — even if that's highly unconventional — but for the frenzied excess of its mood and narrative approach. It’s a wild, wild ride.
A Korean Cinema Explosion
It seems there was a certain energy within the country at the start of the millennium. Save the Green Planet!, helmed by Jang Joon-hwan, belonged to an explosion of daringly creative, groundbreaking movies from fresh voices of filmmakers such as Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It debuted concurrently with Bong’s Memories of Murder and the filmmaker's Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn’t on the same level as those two crime masterpieces, but it’s got a lot in common with them: extreme violence, dark comedy, sharp societal critique, and bending rules.
The Story Develops
Save the Green Planet! focuses on a disturbed young man who abducts a corporate CEO, convinced he is an alien from the planet Andromeda, with plans to invade Earth. Initially, that idea is presented as farce, and the young man, Lee Byeong-gu (the performer from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), seems like an endearing eccentric. Together with his childlike acrobat girlfriend Su-ni (Hwang Jung-min) sport plastic capes and absurd helmets encrusted with psyche-protection gear, and employ menthol rub for defense. But they do succeed in seizing drunken CEO Kang Man-shik (Baek Yun-shik) and bringing him to the protagonist's isolated home, a ramshackle house/lab he’s built on an old mine in a rural area, which houses his beehives.
Growing Tension
Moving forward, the narrative turns into increasingly disturbing. Lee fastens Kang into a makeshift device and subjects him to harm while ranting bizarre plots, eventually driving his kind girlfriend away. But Kang is no victim; fueled entirely by the belief of his innate dominance, he can and will to undergo terrifying trials in hopes of breaking free and lord it over the disturbed kidnapper. Meanwhile, a notably inept manhunt for the abductor begins. The detectives' foolishness and clumsiness recalls Memories of Murder, though it’s not so clearly intentional within a story with plotting that appears haphazard and unrehearsed.
A Frenetic Journey
Save the Green Planet! continues racing ahead, driven by its manic force, breaking rules along the way, long after it seems likely it to either settle down or lose energy. Occasionally it feels as a character study about mental health and excessive drug use; at other times it becomes a metaphorical narrative on the cruelty of capitalism; in turns it's a dirty, tense scare-fest or a bumbling detective tale. Jang Joon-hwan maintains a consistent degree of intense focus in all scenes, and Shin Ha-kyun delivers a standout performance, while the character of Byeong-gu constantly changes between wise seer, charming oddball, and frightening madman as required by the movie’s constant shifts in tone, perspective, and plot. It seems this is intentional, not a flaw, but it might feel rather bewildering.
Designed to Confuse
The director likely meant to confuse viewers, indeed. Like so many Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is driven by a joyful, extreme defiance for stylistic boundaries on one side, and a profound fury about human cruelty in another respect. It’s a roaring expression of a nation gaining worldwide recognition alongside fresh commercial and social changes. One can look forward to witness Lanthimos' perspective on this narrative from a current U.S. standpoint — arguably, the other end of the telescope.
Save the Green Planet! can be viewed online for free.
