Jun-hwan Jeong’s brilliantly mad, mad, mad, mad spaced odyssey famously bombed on release in its native Korea, when in a twist worthy of the film’s delirious logic, the movie was marketed as a romantic comedy. Thankfully, a tour of film festivals has saved this omni-generic black sci-fi comedy from obscurity, and its manic energy and bizarre mood-swings (imagine Reservoir Dogs vs Plan 9 From Outer Space vs They Might Be Giants – go on, try) are sure to seduce discerning punters and psychopaths everywhere.
Kicking off with a fantastic William Castle type voice over, our earnest misfit protagonist Byung-Gu (Shin) informs us of his mission to rid the Earth of marauding aliens from Andromeda. Maybe it’s the bin-liner suit and tinfoil helmet, but it’s immediately apparent either he’s a Vivienne Westwood catwalk model, or else he’s a few celestial bodies short of the full constellation. If his sartorial tastes weren’t quite enough warning, in between handfuls of speed Shin kidnaps the corrupt CEO of a chemical company, an absolute bastard with a predilection for naked golf (the horror, the horror). The reason for this abduction, as Shin explains to his porcine, slow-witted circus performer girlfriend, involves the lunar eclipse and the imminent arrival of the Andromedan alien prince. Ah, but of course. Shin quickly inflicts all manner of tortures on his unwilling guest, attacking him with bee-sting lotion, nails and metre-long electrified dildos.
As the lunacy mounts against a backdrop of mannequin manufacture, pickled body parts, loopy crane style martial arts battles and swarms of killer bees, the reasons for Shin’s er, eccentricities begin to emerge, and the kinetic dementia gives way to something almost melancholic. Not that Save The Green Planet lets up with its absurdist humour. When Freud wrote “comedy is sadism”, he could have had this film’s crucifixion scene in mind. (Well, if he was hitting the zenith of one of his harder coke binges, then it’s entirely possible.)
By the grandiose finale of this intoxicating mind-fuck, you’ll happily be reaching for the Xanax in desperate need of a nice lie-down, and wholly converted to ufology. After all, what earthly forces could account for such a magnificently weird movie?