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Greek avant-garde director Yorgos Lanthimos is known for distinctly odd movies. His original stories veer into the bizarre, for instance The Lobster, where unattached individuals must partner up or face being turned into animals. Whenever he interprets existing material, he often selects source material that’s quite peculiar also — more bizarre, maybe, than his cinematic take. That was the case for last year's Poor Things, a film version of author Alasdair Gray's wonderfully twisted novel, an empowering, liberated take on Frankenstein. The director's adaptation is good, but to some extent, his particular flavor of oddity and the novelist's balance each other.

Lanthimos’ Next Pick

The filmmaker's subsequent choice to interpret was likewise drawn from far out in left field. The source text for Bugonia, his latest team-up with star Emma Stone, is 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a perplexing Korean mix of styles of science fiction, black comedy, horror, irony, psychological thriller, and police procedural. It's an unusual piece less because of what it’s about — even if that's decidedly unusual — but due to the frenzied excess of its atmosphere and storytelling style. It’s a wild, wild ride.

A Korean Cinema Explosion

There likely existed something in the air across Korea during that period. Save the Green Planet!, helmed by Jang Joon-hwan, belonged to a surge of daringly creative, innovative movies from a new generation of filmmakers such as 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! isn't as acclaimed as those celebrated works, but it shares many traits with them: extreme violence, morbid humor, bitter social commentary, and defying expectations.

Narrative Progression

Save the Green Planet! is about an unhinged individual who kidnaps a business tycoon, convinced he is an alien originating in another galaxy, intent on world domination. At first, the premise is played as farce, and the lead, Lee Byeong-gu (the performer from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), comes across as an endearing eccentric. Together with his childlike circus-performer girlfriend Su-ni (the star) wear plastic capes and ridiculous headgear fitted with mental shields, and employ balm as a weapon. But they do succeed in abducting intoxicated executive Kang Man-shik (Baek Yun-shik) and transporting him to Byeong-gu’s remote property, a dilapidated building assembled on an old mine in the mountains, home to his apiary.

A Descent into Darkness

Moving forward, the film veers quickly into ever more unsettling. Lee fastens Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and subjects him to harm while ranting outlandish ideas, eventually driving his kind girlfriend away. But Kang is no victim; fueled entirely by the conviction of his innate dominance, he can and will to subject himself terrifying trials in hopes of breaking free and lord it over the clearly unwell kidnapper. Simultaneously, a comically inadequate police hunt to find the criminal begins. The detectives' foolishness and clumsiness is reminiscent of Memories of Murder, though the similarity might be accidental within a story with a plot that appears haphazard and spontaneous.

A Frenetic Journey

Save the Green Planet! continues racing ahead, fueled by its manic force, breaking rules along the way, even when you might expect it to calm down or run out of steam. Occasionally it feels like a serious story on instability and excessive drug use; sometimes it’s a symbolic tale on the cruelty of corporate culture; sometimes it’s a claustrophobic thriller or a bumbling detective tale. Jang Joon-hwan brings the same level of intense focus to every bit, and the performer shines, even though the character of Byeong-gu constantly changes from savant prophet, charming oddball, and terrifying psycho as required by the narrative's fluidity in mood, viewpoint, and story. It seems it's by design, not a flaw, but it may prove pretty disorienting.

Designed to Confuse

Jang probably consciously intended to disorient his audience, of course. Similar to numerous Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is driven by an exuberant rejection for genre limits on one side, and a genuine outrage about societal brutality additionally. It stands as a loud proclamation of a nation gaining worldwide recognition alongside fresh commercial and cultural freedoms. One can look forward to see how Lanthimos views the original plot from a current U.S. standpoint — perhaps, an opposite perspective.

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Save the Green Planet! is available to stream for free.