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Greek avant-garde filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos has built a reputation on distinctly odd movies. His unique screenplays veer into the bizarre, for instance The Lobster, in which unattached individuals need to find love or else be being turned into animals. In adapting another creator's story, he often selects original works that’s rather eccentric as well — stranger, possibly, than his adaptation of it. Such was the situation with 2023’s Poor Things, a screen interpretation of author Alasdair Gray's gloriously perverse novel, an empowering, open-minded take on Frankenstein. The director's adaptation is good, but partially, his particular flavor of oddity and the novelist's balance each other.

The Director's Latest Choice

His following selection to interpret was likewise drawn from the fringes. The original work for Bugonia, his recent collaboration with star Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean genre stew of science fiction, black comedy, horror, satire, psychological thriller, and police procedural. It's an unusual piece not so much for what it’s about — even if that's decidedly unusual — rather because of the chaotic extremity of its tone and narrative approach. The film is a rollercoaster.

A New Wave of Filmmaking

There must have been a creative spirit within the country during that period. Save the Green Planet!, helmed by Jang Joon-hwan, belonged to a boom of daringly creative, boundary-pushing movies by emerging talents of filmmakers including Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It was released the same year as Bong’s Memories of Murder and the filmmaker's Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! doesn't quite match up as those celebrated works, but it’s got a lot in common with them: graphic brutality, dark comedy, sharp societal critique, and genre subversion.

Narrative Progression

Save the Green Planet! revolves around an unhinged individual who kidnaps a business tycoon, convinced he is a being originating in another galaxy, with plans to invade Earth. Initially, the premise is played as slapstick humor, and the lead, Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), seems like an endearing eccentric. Alongside his naive circus-performer girlfriend Su-ni (the star) sport black PVC ponchos and bizarre masks encrusted with anti-mind-control devices, and employ menthol rub for defense. However, they manage in seizing drunken CEO Kang Man-shik (the performer) and bringing him to Byeong-gu’s remote property, a ramshackle house/lab assembled at a mining site in a rural area, which houses his beehives.

A Descent into Darkness

Hereafter, the narrative turns into something more grotesque. Lee fastens Kang into a makeshift device and inflicts pain while ranting absurd conspiracy theories, ultimately forcing the innocent partner away. Yet the captive is resilient; powered only by the belief of his own superiority, he is willing and able to undergo terrifying trials in hopes of breaking free and exert power over the mentally unstable protagonist. Meanwhile, a deeply unimpressive investigation for the abductor begins. The cops’ witlessness and clumsiness recalls Memories of Murder, though it’s not so clearly intentional within a story with a narrative that seems slapdash and spontaneous.

A Frenetic Journey

Save the Green Planet! plunges forward relentlessly, driven by its wild momentum, trampling genre norms along the way, well past you might expect it to either settle down or falter. Sometimes it seems as a character study regarding psychological issues and pharmaceutical abuse; in parts it transforms into a fantasy allegory about the callousness of capitalism; in turns it's a claustrophobic thriller or a sloppy cop movie. Director Jang maintains a consistent degree of feverish dedication to every bit, and the lead actor shines, although the character of Byeong-gu keeps morphing between wise seer, lovable weirdo, and dangerous lunatic as required by the film's ever-changing tone in tone, perspective, and plot. I think this is intentional, not a flaw, but it can be quite confusing.

Purposeful Chaos

Jang probably consciously intended to disorient his audience, indeed. Like so many Korean films during that period, Save the Green Planet! is driven by a gleeful, maximalist disrespect for genre limits in one aspect, and a quite sincere anger about man’s inhumanity to man on the other. It’s a roaring expression of a nation finding its global voice during emerging financial and social changes. It promises to be intriguing to see Lanthimos' perspective on this narrative from a current U.S. standpoint — possibly, a contrasting viewpoint.

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Save the Green Planet! is accessible for viewing for free.