Main Cast: Shin Ha-kyun, Baek Yun-shik, Hwang Jeong-min, Lee Jae-yong, Lee Ju-hyeon
Release Year: 2003
Country: KR
Run Time: 116 minutes
Plot
The genre-bending black comedy sci-fi thriller Save the Green Planet! marks the feature debut of writer/director Jang Jun-hwan. Shin Ha-kyun of Joint Security Area stars as Byun-gu, an eccentric beekeeper who, with the help of his tightrope walker girlfriend, Sooni (Hwang Jeong-min), kidnaps a powerful and successful businessman, Man-sik (Baek Yun-shik). Byun-gu believes that Man-sik is an alien from the planet Andromeda, one of many hiding among us and plotting to destroy the Earth in a few days. Amphetamine-popping Byun-gu sees himself as the planet's last hope, and sets about torturing Man-sik with relish, trying to convince him to contact the "Royal Prince" and call off Armageddon. A battle of wits and wills ensues, with Man-sik trying to convince his captors that he's human and attempting to escape. Man-sik recognizes Byun-gu as a disgruntled former employee whose comatose mother suffers from a mysterious illness. It begins to seem that Byun-gu's true motivation may be personal, but he's still ruthlessly determined to get Man-sik to confess and cooperate, even if he has to risk killing him. Meanwhile, a disheveled detective, Chu (Lee Jae-yong), and his young acolyte, Inspector Kim (Lee Ju-hyeon), discover that the person who kidnapped Man-sik may have struck several times before, always with deadly results. The distinctly offbeat Save the Green Planet! was a box-office flop in South Korea, but it won some acclaim on the festival circuit. The film had its U.S. premiere at the 2004 New York Korean Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Review
Jang Jun-hwan's mind-boggling Save the Green Planet! was a box-office failure in South Korea. Some blamed the film's marketers, who created several misleadingly sunny posters for the deeply disturbing, if comic, film. But it's hard to imagine a single image that could suggest the broad spectrum of visceral responses this explosion of creative insanity evokes. Jang is clearly committed to his mad vision, and the film has the vivid unpredictability of a fever dream. There are sly allusions to 2001 and The Silence of the Lambs, but the film is most clearly a throwback in that, as with the American horror masters of the early '70s (Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven, George Romero), there's an uneasy sense that the filmmaker might not actually know what he's doing, and that he might throw just about any horrible, insane thing up there on the screen. It might be a charmingly cherubic Hwang Jeong-min practicing her tightrope walking in front of a stripped, shaved, bound prisoner with iron burns on his nipples, to the strains of "Besame Mucho," or it might be the gruesome death of a sympathetic character. As with those '70s filmmakers, Jang's vision is so potent because it's so clearly engaged with the real world. Our sympathies shift from captor to captive, but there is always a niggling doubt about where the truth lies. As in all great fiction, it lies somewhere in between. Star Shin Ha-kyun clearly shares Jang's belief in the material, and delivers a wonderfully unhinged performance, lending real weight to the sequence in which his tragic backstory is dramatized. Save the Green Planet! is occasionally ugly, even brutal, in its depiction of madness and torture, but, considering the wild tonal shift that Jang manages over the course of its running time, it packs a stunning emotional wallop. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Cast
Shin Ha-kyun
Baek Yun-shik
Hwang Jeong-min
Lee Jae-yong
Lee Ju-hyeon
Ki Ju-bong
Credit
Jang Geun-yeong - Art Director, Kim Gyeong-heui - Art Director, Kim Jong-hun - First Assistant Director, Jang Joon-hwan - Director, Park Gok-ji - Editor, Cha Seung-chae - Executive Producer, Lee Kang-beok - Executive Producer, Jeong Hong-gyun - Executive Producer, Michael Staudacher - Composer (Music Score), Hong Gyeong-pyo - Cinematographer, Tcha Sung-Jai - Producer, Cha Seung-chae - Producer, Noh Jong-yun - Producer, Kim Sun-ah - Producer, Scha Sung-jai - Producer, Jeong Do-ahn - Special Effects, Lee Ji-su - Sound/Sound Designer, Jang Joon-hwan - Screenwriter, Jang Seong-ho - CGI Effects, Jang Seong-ho - Visual Effects
