*Save the Green Planet!

Directed by JANG Jun-Hwan
Written by JANG Jun-Hwan

You may have heard some people talking about how Korean cinema is either gonna be or is the next big thing, but if you've seen most of the recently widely-released (stateside) offerings from the Land of Morning Calm, you may be left wondering what exactly the big deal is.

I mean, as shlocky as recent and semi-recent offerings such as Oldboy, Shiri, and Tell Me Something are, they are at least slowly chipping away at the perception that Korea is a land of saccharin (The Way Home), provincial (Memories of Murder, A Tale of Two Sisters) Buddhist monks (Spring Summer Fall Winter...and Spring, Hi, Dharma!) and/or sex maniacs (Bad Guy, The Isle, Samaritan Girl, hell, basically anything directed by KIM Ki-Duk) whose stories always seem to take place in, like, the 16th century (Chihwaseon, Chunhyang, Scandal). The perception which movies like the severely overrated Oldboy do not fight, however, is the one of Korean directors being nothing more than technically capable rip-off artists of more creative Japanese, Hong Kong, and even Hollywood filmmakers.

But then, there exists another level of Korean film, on which stand truly well-made, affecting, original, and (most importantly) distinctively Korean films, such as One Fine Spring Day, JSA, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, 301/302, Memento Mori, Take Care of My Cat, and the subject of this little review, Save the Green Planet! Films that see little to no distribution here in the states, in my opinion, exactly because they don't so easily fit into what has become the stereotypical view of Korean films.

You know how when you see real blood you think to yourself that it doesn't look real, because it doesn't look like movie blood?

[I am, of course, being completely unfair and hyperbolic in my argument. The fact is that, other than Oldboy, The Way Home, and two of the KIM Ki-Duk films, none of the movies I mentioned saw much, if any, play here in the States outside of the festival circuit. (It is also a fact that both Memories of Murder and A Tale of Two Sisters are among the best films I've seen in the last few years, Korean or otherwise.) But, enough about my issues. On with the review!]

According to Byung-Gu (SHIN Ha-Kyun, who's been in everything), aliens are invading Earth. According to Byung-Gu, the aliens are already here. Unfortunately, his "proof" consists of old B-movies and the kind of books you usually find yellowing in the windows of that weird store that nobody ever, ever goes into. Somehow convinced that this invasion is in fact being led by an alien disguised as corporation CEO Man-Sik (BAEK Yun-Sik), Byung-Gu and his girlfriend Sooni (HWANG Jeong-Min, well-known stage actress making I guess her film debut), a tightrope walker in the local circus, proceed to kidnap and torture the poor guy in the basement.

Then, somewhere along the line, as the torture proceeds, as the two men begin to play their subtle (and some not-so) mind games with each other, as we follow the detectives who are tracking Man-Sik, as we learn more and more about the disturbed Byung-Gu, director JANG Jun-Hwan casts his spell us, and our emotional allegiances, like the mind of poor Sooni, become utterly tangled before we begin to understand what's going on, what this is really all about. And then we become afraid, thoroughly afraid.

For reasons that will remain one of those great cinematic mysteries of the ages, the powers that be decided to market Save the Green Planet! as some sort of a wacky screwball comedy upon initial release. Audiences, charmed by the goofy posters and website and expecting a good Sunday afternoon guffaw got instead (assuming they didn't walk out halfway through) a completely unique and organic blend of tragedy, pitch-black humor, shocking violence, and utter mind-fuck. It's no wonder that the picture bombed. It was just too good for this Earth.

So good, in fact, that the last two minutes can't help but feel like a bit of a cheat. Not a bad ending, just unnecessary, just too easy for the journey (and it is a journey) on which we've just been taken. But then, just as you're ready to scoff, JANG pulls one final rabbit out of his hat, the credits begin to roll, a cracked television screen appears, and you start to cry all over again. In the economics of human emotion, I guess a questionable ending really isn't that big a deal, really.

Save the Green Planet! is playing at Film Forum (and possibly elsewhere - check local listings) through May 3. Find it, watch it, share it with someone you love.