SAVE THE GREEN PLANET
Directed & Written by: Jang Jun-Hwan.
Produced by: Cha Seung-Jae.
Director of Photography: Hong Gyeong-Pyo.
Edited by: Park Gok-Ji.
Music by: Michael Staudacher.
Released by: Koch Lober.
Language: Korean and Andromedan with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: South Korea. 116 min. Not Rated.
With: Shin Ha-Gyun, Baek Yun-Shik, Hwang Jung-Min & Lee Jae-Yong.

Blue-collar everyman Lee (Shin Ha-Gyun) is disgruntled, short on luck and downright angry. But his fury isn't targeted at the world but Andromedan aliens, who he believes are the source of all his bad breaks. He arms himself and his plump, unquestioning girlfriend Sooni (Hwang Jung-Min) with makeshift protective suits (read, garbage bags) and sets out on a mission to save the earth from the Andromedans' conspiracy to destroy the planet by the next lunar eclipse. Lee and Sooni's kidnap Kang (Baek Yun-Shik), a CEO of a chemical firm, who Lee believes is the one alien possessing the Royal Genetic Code needed to stop the impending destruction. After dragging Kang to his remote mountain hideout, Lee embarks on a torture session to make his captive confess to his alien identity.

Save the Green Planet is a panache of campy visuals, patched together with fast-paced editing. Its genre-bending narrative starts out as a psychotic thriller reminiscent of Misery, fuses into a cat-and-mouse detective hunt, and then launches into a sci-fi tour-de-force before it presents its deliciously original anti-violence message, all the while retaining its slapstick touch.

Replete with wincingly horrific torture scenes involving a clothes iron, nails and a steam-emitting dildo, Save is best avoided by the faint-hearted. But despite its ludicrous atrocities, the film’s also a morality tale, and for those who stick around for the entire roller coaster ride, the ending is a pessimistic but powerful look at a deeply corrupt, corporate-run world. Marie Iida
April 20, 2005