Save the Green Planet!
Entry updated 29 September 2025. Tagged: Film.
South Korean film (2003); original title Jigureul jikyeora!. CJ Entertainment/Sidus. Written and directed by Jang Joon-hwan. Cast includes Baek Yoon-sik, Hwang Jeon-min, Lee Jae-yong, Lee Ju-hyeon and Shin Ha-kyun. 118 minutes. Colour.
Byeong-gu (Shin) is convinced that pharmaceutical executive Kang Man-shik (Baek) is actually an Alien from Andromeda, in advance of a planned Invasion of Earth led by the Andromedan prince. Believing himself the only person who can save Earth, Byeong-gu enlists his girlfriend Su-ni (Hwang) to help kidnap Kang, and keep him as a prisoner in order to extract information about the coming alien fleet. Among other things he shaves Kang's head, as he believes that Kang communicates telepathically with other Andromedans through his hair. He also holds Kang's company responsible for the ill health of his mother, who is in a coma.
Detective Choo (Lee Jae-yong) and his protégé Kim (Lee Ju-hyeon) are investigating the disappearance of Kang, and several other people who they find are linked to Byeong-gu. On visiting Byeong-gu's isolated home, Choo discovers a dog gnawing on the bone of one of his previous victims. Byeong-gu memorably uses a swarm of bees to kill Choo. In desperation, Kang admits to being an alien, who are experimenting on humans, including Byeong-gu's mother. He gives Byeong-gu a supposed antidote, but when Byeong-gu gives it to his mother to drink, it turns out to be benzene, which kills her.
Byeong-gu returns to his lair to kill Kang, who keeps up the seeming pretence by offering to contact the alien prince, and tells the story of the aliens' history on Earth, including accidentally wiping out the Dinosaurs, and that the experiments are designed to remove a Suicide gene they had introduced, which is responsible for human violence and destruction. In a struggle, Su-ni is killed and the arriving police fatally wound Byeong-gu. As Kang is rescued, the aliens arrive and kill the police, and transport Kang to their ship, where it is revealed he is the prince, who had been unable to communicate with the fleet after his hair was shorn. Deciding Earth is beyond hope, the aliens blow up the planet.
Save the Green Planet! was Jang's debut as writer-director and almost bursts at the seams with ideas, styles and mixed genres: sf, detective story, slapstick, body Horror, social commentary, a brief Wuxia sequence and more. The sequence showing alien intervention on Earth is particularly memorable, taking in "explanations" for the extinction of the dinosaurs, the Tower of Babel and Noah's Ark, and a tribute to/Parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), all in a few frantic minutes. Though the acting is over-broad at times, and by no means all the comedy hits its targets, this is a frenetic, unpredictable film designed to keep the audience on its toes.
The loose English-language remake is Bugonia (2025), directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. [CWa]
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