Bugonia Couldn't Be Stranger Than the Science Fiction Psychological Drama It's Based On

Aegean surrealist director Yorgos Lanthimos has built a reputation on highly unusual movies. The narratives he creates veer into the bizarre, like The Lobster, where unattached individuals must partner up or else be changed into beasts. Whenever he interprets existing material, he often selects basis material that’s rather eccentric as well — stranger, possibly, than the version he creates. Such was the situation with 2023’s Poor Things, a film version of author Alasdair Gray's gloriously perverse novel, a pro-female, liberated reimagining of Frankenstein. The director's adaptation stands strong, but to some extent, his unique brand of oddity and Gray’s neutralize one another.

The Director's Latest Choice

The filmmaker's subsequent choice for adaptation was likewise drawn from far out in left field. The basis for Bugonia, his newest team-up with star Emma Stone, is 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean fusion of science fiction, black comedy, horror, satire, psychological thriller, and cop drama. It’s a strange film not primarily due to its subject matter — although that's far from normal — rather because of the chaotic extremity of its tone and storytelling style. It's an insane journey.

A Korean Cinema Explosion

There must have been a certain energy within the country at the start of the millennium. Save the Green Planet!, helmed by Jang Joon-hwan, belonged to a surge of stylistically bold, boundary-pushing movies from a new generation of filmmakers like Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It came out concurrently with the director's Memories of Murder and the filmmaker's Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn’t on the same level as those iconic films, but it shares many traits with them: graphic brutality, morbid humor, bitter social commentary, and genre subversion.

The Story Develops

Save the Green Planet! is about a disturbed young man who abducts a chemical-company executive, believing he’s an alien from the planet Andromeda, with plans to invade Earth. At first, this concept is played as broad comedy, and the lead, Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), appears as an endearing eccentric. Alongside his naive entertainer girlfriend Su-ni (the star) don black PVC ponchos and ridiculous headgear fitted with anti-mind-control devices, and use menthol rub in combat. However, they manage in seizing drunken CEO Kang Man-shik (actor Baek) and taking him to the protagonist's isolated home, a ramshackle house/lab constructed at a mining site amid the hills, which houses his beehives.

Shifting Tones

Moving forward, the story shifts abruptly into increasingly disturbing. The protagonist ties Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and subjects him to harm while ranting outlandish ideas, finally pushing the innocent partner away. However, Kang isn't helpless; powered only by the conviction of his elevated status, he is willing and able to subject himself awful experiences just to try to escape and lord it over the disturbed protagonist. Meanwhile, a notably inept investigation for the abductor commences. The cops’ witlessness and lack of skill echoes Memories of Murder, even if it may not be as deliberate in a movie with plotting that appears haphazard and improvised.

Constant Shifts

Save the Green Planet! plunges forward relentlessly, propelled by its manic force, trampling genre norms underfoot, even when you might expect it to either settle down or run out of steam. Occasionally it feels to be a drama about mental health and overmedication; at other times it becomes a fantasy allegory on the cruelty of corporate culture; in turns it's a dirty, tense scare-fest or a sloppy cop movie. Jang Joon-hwan applies equal measure of feverish dedication throughout, and the lead actor shines, although Lee Byeong-gu keeps morphing among visionary, endearing eccentric, and dangerous lunatic depending on the narrative's fluidity across style, angle, and events. It seems that’s a feature, not a flaw, but it might feel quite confusing.

Intentional Disorientation

It's plausible Jang aimed to unsettle spectators, indeed. In line with various Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! draws energy from an exuberant rejection for genre limits on one side, and a genuine outrage about man’s inhumanity to man additionally. It’s a roaring expression of a society finding its global voice alongside fresh commercial and social changes. It promises to be intriguing to observe how Lanthimos views this narrative from a current U.S. standpoint — perhaps, a contrasting viewpoint.

Save the Green Planet! can be viewed online at no cost.