Bugonia Couldn't Be Weirder Than the Science Fiction Psychological Drama It's Based On
Aegean surrealist director Yorgos Lanthimos is known for extremely strange movies. His original stories veer into the bizarre, such as The Lobster, in which single people need to find love or else be transformed into creatures. In adapting existing material, he frequently picks source material that’s quite peculiar too — odder, possibly, than the version he creates. Such was the situation with 2023’s Poor Things, an adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s delightfully aberrant novel, a feminist, sex-positive reimagining of Frankenstein. Lanthimos’ version is effective, but partially, his specific style of weirdness and Gray’s neutralize one another.
His New Adaptation
His following selection for adaptation 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 confounding Korean genre stew of science fiction, dark humor, horror, irony, dark psychodrama, and police procedural. It's an unusual piece not so much for what it’s about — though that is far from normal — rather because of the wild intensity of its tone and storytelling style. It's an insane journey.
The Burst of Korean Film
There likely existed a certain energy within the country in the early 2000s. Save the Green Planet!, written and directed by Jang Joon-hwan, was included in a boom of stylistically bold, boundary-pushing movies by emerging talents of filmmakers like Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It came out the same year as the director's Memories of Murder and Park’s Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn’t on the same level as those iconic films, but it’s got a lot in common with them: graphic brutality, morbid humor, bitter social commentary, and defying expectations.
Narrative Progression
Save the Green Planet! is about a troubled protagonist who kidnaps a business tycoon, thinking he's a being originating in another galaxy, intent on world domination. At first, this concept is played as farce, and the young man, Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), seems like a charmingly misguided figure. He and his innocent acrobat girlfriend Su-ni (the actress Hwang) don black PVC ponchos and bizarre masks adorned with psyche-protection gear, and employ balm for defense. But they do succeed in abducting intoxicated executive Kang Man-shik (the performer) and bringing him to a secluded location, a ramshackle house/lab assembled on an old mine in the mountains, which houses his beehives.
Shifting Tones
From this point, the narrative turns into ever more unsettling. The protagonist ties Kang onto a crude contraption and subjects him to harm while declaiming absurd conspiracy theories, ultimately forcing the gentle Su-ni away. Yet the captive is resilient; driven solely by the certainty of his innate dominance, he is prepared and capable to subject himself horrifying ordeals in hopes of breaking free and lord it over the disturbed protagonist. Simultaneously, a comically inadequate police hunt for the abductor begins. The cops’ witlessness and lack of skill echoes Memories of Murder, even if it’s not so clearly intentional within a story with plotting that seems slapdash and unrehearsed.
Constant Shifts
Save the Green Planet! continues racing ahead, fueled by its own crazed energy, defying conventions underfoot, well past it seems likely it to find stability or run out of steam. Sometimes it seems to be a drama on instability and overmedication; sometimes it’s a fantasy allegory on the cruelty of corporate culture; sometimes it’s a grimy basement horror or a sloppy cop movie. The filmmaker applies equal measure of intense focus to every bit, and Shin Ha-kyun is excellent, while the protagonist keeps morphing from savant prophet, endearing eccentric, and frightening madman depending on the movie’s constant shifts in tone, perspective, and plot. It seems this is intentional, not a bug, but it might feel rather bewildering.
Purposeful Chaos
It's plausible Jang aimed to disorient his audience, of course. Like so many Korean films from that era, Save the Green Planet! draws energy from a gleeful, maximalist disrespect for genre limits partly, and a genuine outrage about societal brutality on the other. The film is a vibrant manifestation of a nation gaining worldwide recognition alongside fresh commercial and cultural freedoms. It will be fascinating to observe how Lanthimos views the same story from a current U.S. standpoint — possibly, a contrasting viewpoint.
Save the Green Planet! can be viewed online at no cost.
