🔗 Share this article The New Film Couldn't Be More Bizarre Than the Sci-Fi Psychodrama It's Inspired By Greek surrealist filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos specializes in extremely strange movies. The narratives he creates are weird, like The Lobster, where single people are compelled to form relationships or else be being turned into animals. Whenever he interprets someone else’s work, he often selects original works that’s pretty odd also — more bizarre, maybe, than the version he creates. Such was the situation for last year's Poor Things, a film version of author Alasdair Gray's gloriously perverse novel, an empowering, open-minded spin on Frankenstein. His film is good, but to some extent, his unique brand of weirdness and the novelist's balance each other. The Director's Latest Choice Lanthimos’ next pick to bring to screen was likewise drawn from the fringes. The basis for Bugonia, his latest collaboration with star Emma Stone, is 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean mix of styles of sci-fi, dark humor, terror, irony, psychological thriller, and cop drama. The movie is odd not primarily due to its plot — even if that's decidedly unusual — but for the frenzied excess of its atmosphere and narrative approach. The film is a rollercoaster. A New Wave of Filmmaking It seems there was something in the air in South Korea in the early 2000s. Save the Green Planet!, the work of Jang Joon-hwan, belonged to a surge of stylistically bold, groundbreaking movies by emerging talents of filmmakers such as Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It was released concurrently with the director's Memories of Murder and Park’s Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! doesn't quite match up as those two crime masterpieces, but it shares many traits with them: extreme violence, morbid humor, sharp societal critique, and genre subversion. Image: Tartan Video The Story Develops Save the Green Planet! is about a disturbed young man who kidnaps a corporate CEO, thinking he's an alien hailing from Andromeda, with plans to invade Earth. At first, the premise is played as farce, and the protagonist, Lee Byeong-gu (the performer known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), appears as a charmingly misguided figure. He and his innocent entertainer girlfriend Su-ni (the star) wear plastic capes and absurd helmets encrusted with mental shields, and use menthol rub as a weapon. Yet they accomplish in seizing drunken CEO Kang Man-shik (actor Baek) and taking him to the protagonist's isolated home, a dilapidated building assembled on an old mine amid the hills, which houses his beehives. Growing Tension Moving forward, the narrative turns into increasingly disturbing. Lee fastens Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and physically abuses him while ranting absurd conspiracy theories, ultimately forcing the innocent partner away. Yet the captive is resilient; fueled entirely by the conviction of his innate dominance, he can and will to endure horrifying ordeals in hopes of breaking free and exert power over the clearly unwell kidnapper. At the same time, a deeply unimpressive police hunt for the abductor gets underway. The cops’ witlessness and incompetence recalls Memories of Murder, though it’s not so clearly intentional in a film with a narrative that comes off as rushed and spontaneous. Image: Tartan Video Constant Shifts Save the Green Planet! plunges forward relentlessly, fueled by its manic force, trampling genre norms along the way, long after you might expect it to find stability or falter. At moments it appears as a character study on instability and overmedication; at other times it becomes a fantasy allegory about the callousness of corporate culture; alternately it serves as a claustrophobic thriller or a bumbling detective tale. Jang Joon-hwan brings the same level of hysterical commitment throughout, and the lead actor shines, while the protagonist keeps morphing from savant prophet, lovable weirdo, and terrifying psycho as required by the movie’s constant shifts in tone, perspective, and plot. One could argue it's by design, not a bug, but it may prove rather bewildering. Designed to Confuse It's plausible Jang aimed to confuse viewers, indeed. Similar to numerous Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is powered by a joyful, extreme defiance for genre limits on one side, and a profound fury about human cruelty additionally. It stands as a loud proclamation of a nation finding its global voice amid new economic and cultural freedoms. It will be fascinating to see Lanthimos' perspective on the same story from a current U.S. standpoint — arguably, the other end of the telescope. Save the Green Planet! is available to stream without charge.