Bugonia Couldn't Be Stranger Than the Sci-Fi Psychological Drama It's Adapted From

Aegean avant-garde director Yorgos Lanthimos has built a reputation on highly unusual movies. His original stories veer into the bizarre, like The Lobster, where single people must partner up or risk transformed into creatures. Whenever he interprets existing material, he frequently picks original works that’s quite peculiar as well — stranger, possibly, than his cinematic take. This proved true with 2023’s Poor Things, a screen interpretation of Alasdair Gray’s delightfully aberrant novel, an empowering, liberated take on Frankenstein. Lanthimos’ version is good, but to some extent, his specific style of eccentricity and Gray’s cancel each other out.

His New Adaptation

His following selection for adaptation similarly emerged from unexpected territory. The source text for Bugonia, his newest team-up with leading actress Emma Stone, is 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean mix of styles of science fiction, black comedy, terror, irony, psychological thriller, and police procedural. It's an unusual piece not so much for its subject matter — though that is highly unconventional — but for the frenzied excess of its mood and storytelling style. The film is a rollercoaster.

The Burst of Korean Film

There must have been a certain energy across Korea during that period. Save the Green Planet!, helmed by Jang Joon-hwan, was part of a surge of audacious in style, innovative movies from a new generation of filmmakers including Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It debuted concurrently with the director's Memories of Murder and Park’s Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn't as acclaimed as those iconic films, but there are similarities with them: graphic brutality, morbid humor, pointed observations, and bending rules.

The Plot Unfolds

Save the Green Planet! is about a disturbed young man who captures a corporate CEO, believing he’s an alien from the planet Andromeda, plotting an attack. At first, the premise unfolds as farce, and the young man, Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), appears as an endearing eccentric. Alongside his innocent circus-performer girlfriend Su-ni (Hwang Jung-min) don plastic capes and absurd helmets encrusted with psyche-protection gear, and employ balm as a weapon. But they do succeed in seizing inebriated businessman Kang Man-shik (actor Baek) and transporting him to Byeong-gu’s remote property, a dilapidated building he’s built at a mining site amid the hills, which houses his beehives.

Shifting Tones

Hereafter, the narrative turns into ever more unsettling. The protagonist ties Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and inflicts pain while declaiming outlandish ideas, eventually driving the gentle Su-ni away. Yet the captive is resilient; powered only by the belief of his elevated status, he is prepared and capable to undergo horrifying ordeals in hopes of breaking free and dominate the disturbed protagonist. At the same time, a comically inadequate manhunt for the kidnapper commences. The cops’ witlessness and clumsiness recalls Memories of Murder, though the similarity might be accidental within a story with a plot that seems slapdash and improvised.

A Frenetic Journey

Save the Green Planet! continues racing ahead, propelled by its wild momentum, defying conventions underfoot, even when it seems likely it to calm down or run out of steam. At moments it appears like a serious story regarding psychological issues and excessive drug use; in parts it transforms into a fantasy allegory regarding the indifference of capitalism; in turns it's a claustrophobic thriller or an incompetent police story. Jang Joon-hwan brings the same level of hysterical commitment to every bit, and the lead actor shines, while the character of Byeong-gu keeps morphing from wise seer, endearing eccentric, and terrifying psycho in response to the movie’s constant shifts across style, angle, and events. It seems this is intentional, not a bug, but it can be quite confusing.

Designed to Confuse

It's plausible Jang aimed to disorient his audience, of course. Similar to numerous Korean films during that period, Save the Green Planet! draws energy from an exuberant rejection for stylistic boundaries on one side, and a genuine outrage about man’s inhumanity to man on the other. It stands as a loud proclamation of a society finding its global voice during emerging financial and social changes. One can look forward to see the director's interpretation of the original plot from contemporary America — possibly, a contrasting viewpoint.

Save the Green Planet! is accessible for viewing for free.