Bugonia Isn't Likely to Be More Bizarre Than the Sci-Fi Psychological Drama It's Adapted From

Aegean surrealist filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos has built a reputation on highly unusual movies. His unique screenplays veer into the bizarre, for instance The Lobster, in which single people must partner up or else be transformed into creatures. When he adapts someone else’s work, he frequently picks original works that’s quite peculiar as well — stranger, maybe, than his adaptation of it. That was the case with 2023’s Poor Things, an adaptation of author Alasdair Gray's gloriously perverse novel, a pro-female, liberated spin on Frankenstein. Lanthimos’ version is effective, but partially, his unique brand of weirdness and Gray’s neutralize one another.

The Director's Latest Choice

The filmmaker's subsequent choice to bring to screen similarly emerged from far out in left field. The source text for Bugonia, his latest team-up with leading actress Emma Stone, is 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean fusion of sci-fi, dark humor, terror, satire, psychological thriller, and cop drama. It's an unusual piece less because of its plot — although that's far from normal — rather because of the chaotic extremity of its tone and directorial method. The film is a rollercoaster.

The Burst of Korean Film

There likely existed a creative spirit in South Korea in the early 2000s. Save the Green Planet!, written and directed by Jang Joon-hwan, belonged to a surge of stylistically bold, innovative movies from fresh voices of filmmakers like Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It came out alongside Bong’s Memories of Murder and the filmmaker's Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn't as acclaimed as those iconic films, but there are similarities with them: extreme violence, morbid humor, pointed observations, and bending rules.

Narrative Progression

Save the Green Planet! is about a disturbed young man who captures a chemical-company executive, convinced he is an extraterrestrial originating in another galaxy, intent on world domination. Early on, this concept is presented as slapstick humor, and the young man, Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), comes across as a lovably deluded fool. Alongside his childlike circus-performer girlfriend Su-ni (Hwang Jung-min) wear black PVC ponchos and absurd helmets fitted with mental shields, and wield balm in combat. Yet they accomplish in abducting intoxicated executive Kang Man-shik (actor Baek) and bringing him to the protagonist's isolated home, a dilapidated building constructed at a mining site in the mountains, home to his apiary.

Shifting Tones

Hereafter, the story shifts abruptly into increasingly disturbing. Lee fastens Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and subjects him to harm while spouting absurd conspiracy theories, eventually driving the gentle Su-ni away. Yet the captive is resilient; driven solely by the certainty of his own superiority, he can and will to subject himself terrifying trials just to try to escape and dominate the clearly unwell protagonist. Simultaneously, a comically inadequate manhunt for the abductor begins. The detectives' foolishness and incompetence echoes Memories of Murder, although it’s not so clearly intentional in a movie with a plot that appears haphazard and spontaneous.

A Frenetic Journey

Save the Green Planet! plunges forward relentlessly, propelled by its wild momentum, trampling genre norms without pause, well past one would assume it to calm down or falter. Occasionally it feels like a serious story about mental health and overmedication; sometimes it’s a metaphorical narrative on the cruelty of the economic system; in turns it's a grimy basement horror or a sloppy cop movie. The filmmaker applies equal measure of feverish dedication throughout, and the lead actor is excellent, even though Lee Byeong-gu continuously shifts among visionary, endearing eccentric, and terrifying psycho as required by the narrative's fluidity in mood, viewpoint, and story. It seems that’s a feature, not a bug, but it might feel pretty disorienting.

Intentional Disorientation

It's plausible Jang aimed to unsettle spectators, mind. In line with various Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is powered by a joyful, extreme defiance for artistic rules partly, and a profound fury about man’s inhumanity to man on the other. The film is a vibrant manifestation of a culture establishing its international presence alongside fresh commercial and cultural freedoms. It will be fascinating to see how Lanthimos views the original plot through a modern Western lens — arguably, a contrasting viewpoint.

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