Save the Green Planet!
(aka: Jigureul jikyeora!)
(CJ Entertainment R3/NTSC 2-Disc DVD)
(2003)
review by Suspiriorium

Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-gyun) is convinced that Kang Man-shik (Baek Yun-shik), head of Yoojae Chemical Company & son-in-law of the Chief of Police, is actually an alien living on Earth. What’s more, he’s the only one able to contact the alien Prince, who will be coming to Earth at the lunar eclipse in just 7 days time. With the future of the entire planet in the balance, Lee takes the only sensible route – wearing a bin-bag & a natty home-made helmet to protect him from the alien’s telepathy – he kidnaps Kang takes him to his remote home high in the mountains. There, he holds him captive in his dank basement & tortures him to try to prevent the destruction of mankind. But is Kang really an alien, or does Lee have ulterior motives even he doesn’t understand?

A brief synopsis doesn’t do justice to the demented genre hopping of writer-director Jang Jun-hwan’s magnificent debut. If you were to try to pigeonhole it, you could describe Save the Green Planet! as a darkly comic sci-fi revenge thriller. But that’s frankly an exercise in futility, as you could never do the film justice. It’s almost as though the director was worried that he may not get to make another film & so flung as much stuff as he could manage into this one film. This should make it desperately undisciplined & pretty much unwatchable, but Jun-hwan backs his rampant invention up with enough talent to make its disparate elements work together for a surprisingly cohesive whole. Its sly genre-slipping will alienate many viewers who want to know exactly what type of film it is that they’re watching, but for those who are happy to sit & watch a plain old film & allow themselves to be surprised by whatever direction it chooses to take, it’s an absolute treat. Even as it borrows ideas & clichés from other films, the manner in which it all comes together is unusual & startlingly original.

The film’s success is due in no small part to the magnificent central performance of Shin Ha-gyun, who was so impressive in Sympathy for Mr Vengeance. If anything he’s even better here, making Byeong-gu a character with genuine depth & subtlety. It’s not entirely clear whether he is an admittedly ramshackle superhero, or a deranged psychotic but both are there in the performance & the character is somehow sympathetic even in his darkest moments. Ha-gyun is aided by some terrific support from Baek Yun-shik, who could be the hapless victim of circumstance or is perhaps deserving of his treatment; & also from Baek Yun-sik as Byeung-gu’s tightrope walking girlfriend.

Visually, Save the Green Planet! is a remarkably assured debut for Jun-hwan. Aided by cinematographer Kyung-pyo Hong & production designers Geun-yeong Jang & Kyeong-hie Kim, the film is ravishing to look at with stylistic echoes of Fincher, Jeunet & Caro, Miike & others. Topped off with just a dash of CG-wizardry (not intrusive until near the end) it’s a treat for the eyeballs. The visual style is superbly complemented by an excellent score from Dong-jun Lee, a beautiful orchestral effort that mixes Elfman/Men in Black-style grooves with some gorgeous heartfelt melodic sections. Interestingly, some places have credited the score to German composer Michael Staudacher (he’s certainly not who’s credited on the version I saw). I’m not sure if this means he’s providing an alternate replacement score for certain territories (I hope not, as the score is perfect), or if this is a case of pseudonyms being used, I don’t know.

Whilst at first glance, Save the Green Planet! looks like a black comedy (& with it’s gruesome torture scenes, it certainly is black - & yet it’s also extremely funny too) what is really unexpected is it’s oddly touching emotional core. Underneath all the surface quirkiness lies an oddly heartfelt indictment of mankind’s self-destructive nature, which reminded me in an odd way of Plan 9 from Outer Space. Normally being reminded of Ed Wood’s magnum opus would hardly be considered a recommendation, but trust me – it’s a reminder in the best possible way.

Sadly, Save the Green Planet! didn’t do very well at the box office when it was released in it’s native Korea, not helped by having been marketed as a Men in Black-esque Sci-Fi comedy, when it’s actually considerably darker & more interesting than that. But then it’s probably not really a film that will sit well with a mainstream audience anyway. This film seems destined for cult-hood, one of those odd but brilliant films that you just want to share with as many people as possible, even if they don’t get it properly. Sure, it’s not perfect – I’ve had to remove half a skull because it looses it at the climax as the carefully-built ambiguity is lost – but the sheer amount of good-will it had built up in me was enough to forgive it. With enough ideas & subtexts to have several hours of post-film debate, it’s so strange, shocking, gruesome, funny & just plain old bonkers that I can’t give it anything but the highest recommendation.

I watched the film on the 2-Disc R3/NTSC set from CJ Entertainment in Korea. Even though the film wasn’t a big success there, the effort has certainly been put into this DVD. Disc 1 contains a gorgeous 16x9 enhanced 1.85:1 transfer, plus a stonking dts 5.1 Korean audio track. Dolby varieties are provided in 5.1 & 2.0 for those not dts equipped, whilst subtitles are in English or Korean.

As for the extras, it’s a good news-bad news situation. The good news is that there are loads of features – the bad news is that none of them have English subtitles. Disc 1 has a feature commentary, whilst disc 2 boasts:
3-part “Making of” documentary
Extensive cast/crew interviews
“Art of the Green Planet” documentary
“Music from the Green Planet” documentary
Previews – footage from the premiere, teaser & full trailers, plus a TV spot
9 deleted/extended scenes with director introductions
Behind Story – presumably detailing the inspirations
X-file – something that is password protected - & the only clue is in Korean!
Real Circus – footage of an actual circus (it does have something to do with the film – honest!)
Ending Credit – basically the end credits over behind the scenes footage
It somehow seems churlish to complain about the lack of subtitles here, since this release is not intended for English-speaking territories, but it does count against it for those unable to understand Korean. Personally, I felt that the price I paid was well worthwhile for the film alone, & the a/v quality is superlative. Whether you go for an import or wait for a full English language release (Tartan has picked up the rights for UK distribution in 2004 – I’m not sure about the US) is up to you, but this is one oddity well worth seeking out.