ECHOES IN TIME
KOREAN FILMS OF THE GOLDEN AGE AND NEW CINEMA

Save the Green Planet!

South Korea 2003, 118 mins
Director: Jang Joon-hwan


This one-of-a-kind, completely insane film follows a disillusioned conspiracy theorist who believes that aliens have infiltrated society and plan to destroy Earth during the next lunar eclipse. He’s convinced his old boss holds the key to stopping the aliens, so he and his devoted circus-performer girlfriend kidnap and torture the man for a confession. Blurring the line between reality and delusion, Jang Joon-hwan’s extraordinary feature debut is a riot of humour and environmental concern.

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot.

Jang Joon-hwan comes from the generation that entered the Korean film industry after the political change of 1993; he studied at the Korean Academy of Film Arts, where his graduation project 2001: Imagine was a portrait of a Korean slacker who comes to believe he’s the reincarnation of John Lennon. He spent more than two years nurturing the script of Save the Green Planet! (his debut feature), investing it with an attention to detail and a range of reference rare in Korean cinema. The film did disappointing business on its release but quickly became a cult phenomenon: its fans launched an independent website and began showing up en masse at screenings, sometimes in costume.

Far from being unsure where it is going, Save the Green Planet! is a complex but entirely coherent lament for the fate of Jang’s generation, born and raised in a Korea run like a military dictatorship in which violence was institutionalised in schools and borstals, in which political opposition and labour activism were crushed with extreme prejudice and in which civilians were slaughtered on the streets of Kwangju in a Korean anticipation of China’s Tiananmen Square massacre. The most brilliant of Jang’s many smart ideas is to frame this lament as a dark comedy. It takes its tone, colour and basic narrative drive from the Hollywood/Hong Kong action-adventures the protagonist remembers so fondly from his childhood – it even ends with a tacky apocalyptic fantasy straight out of his dying dreams – but it is not itself a conventional genre movie.

The film pulls off an extraordinary, Hitchcockian feat in seeking and maintaining empathy with a protagonist who turns out to be seriously damaged. Lee Byung Gu is introduced as a harmless fantasist, projecting alien conspiracy theories on to the hated figure of an immoral captain of industry. But when he kidnaps and tortures the man, this bumbling social inadequate is gradually shown to be a crystal-meth-fuelled serial killer who feeds corpses to his pet dog and keeps severed parts of his victims in specimen jars. A climactic montage reveals the lifetime of physical abuse that has made him the man he is, and incidentally shows that his first girlfriend was mown down in the Kwangju massacre. The character is less a Korean Norman Bates than a cipher for the real-life horrors his generation lived through.
Tony Rayns, Sight and Sound, May 2005

A unique perspective on extraterrestrials
Utilising the imagination of science-fiction, this is a film that critiques society. In Hollywood films or Western society aliens usually just provide entertainment value. However, the aliens in director Jang Joon-hwan’s film speak to modern reality. This is not a film about the future; it may be described as an ‘analogue’ science-fiction comedy set in the present. Completely new subjects, unpredictable characters… the director set to shake up the 21st century says: Is it aliens from a distant planet trying to destroy the planet? Or is it just us?

Freshly imagined comedy meets suspense!
This film’s originality stems from the freedom of an imagination that criss-crosses fiction and reality. When animation-like fantasy meets well-drawn drama, intriguing emotions are the result. One moment incites a guffaw, the next a tear. Suddenly you are plunged into terror, but then you empathise with the character’s sadness. Recalling Charlie Chaplin in films, laughs are not produced by one-liners, but by the suspenseful comedy itself.

Not a superhero, just an average man
Our main character Byung Gu is completely unlike any superhero. But he is still a hero. He does not process Superman’s cloak or Spiderman’s webs: all he has is a blind belief of mankind. And actually, outside of the movies, it is the job of ordinary people to keep peace on earth.

The ordinary is just a cover for the exceptional
Hollywood-style science-fiction excels in showing off future worlds and virtual spaces created with the most advanced computer graphics. This science fiction film’s stylistic signature however, may be its emphasis on drama and emotional pitch.

A visual marker for the film’s unique imagination can be found in the Earth Defence Headquarters. From the outside, the home is like many a traditional home that can be found in the countryside of Korea. On the inside however, it is a fantastical mission control centre. Furthermore, through the use of suspenseful editing, inventive visuals and unusual sounds (à la Jean-Pierre Jeunet), the film delivers a peculiar brand of entertainment fantasy.

Original production notes

SAVE THE GREEN PLANET! (JIGUREUL JIKYEORA!)
Director: Jang Joon-hwan
Production Company: Sidus Corporation
Presented by: CJ Entertainment
Presented in association with: Sidus Corporation, Discovery Venture Capital
Executive Producer: Lee Kang-bok
Co-executive producers: Tcha Seung-jai, Jung Hong-kyun
Producers: Tcha Seung-jai, Noh Jong-yoon
Co-producer: Kim Sun-ah
Line Producer: Kim Dong-hwan
Production Supervisor: Seok Dong-joon
Assistant Director: Kim Jong-hoon
Script Supervisor: Roh Doek
Casting: Jun Hong-joo, Kim Kyung-rok, Kim Sang-eun
Screenplay: Jang Joon-hwan
Director of Photography: Houng Gyung-pyo
B Camera: Cho Ki-young
Lighting Director: Yoo Young-joung
CG Supervisor: Jang Sung-ho
Matte Painting: Yoo Ji-eun, Pyun Hyung-kyu
Special Effects: Demolition
Special Effects Supervisor: Jung Do-an
Special Effects Directors: Kim Tae-eui, Yoo Young-il, Bang Sung-cheol
Editor: Park Gok-ji
Location Editing: Choi Chang-hwan, Cho Woon
Production Designers: Jang Geun-young, Kim Gyung-hee
Art Director: Lee Jeong-mi
Wardrobe Supervisors: Jang Geun-young, Kim Gyung-hee
Key Make-up: Lee Kyung-ja
Special Make-up Effects: Shin Jae-ho
Music: Lee Dong-joon
Music: Michael Staudacher *
Sound Design: Lee In-gyu
Sound Recording: Lee Ji-soo
Sound Re-recording: Choi Tae-young
Sound Editors: Kang Hye-young, Lee Jae-hyeok
Stunt Co-ordinators: Kim Min-soo, Yoo Sang-seub, Action School

Cast
Shin Ha-kyun (Lee Byung Gu)
Baek Yoon-sik (President Kang Man-Shik)
Hwang Jung-min (Sooni)
Lee Jae-yong (Detective Choo)
Lee Joo-hyun (Detective Kim)
Ki Joo-bong (Detective Inspector Lee)
Kim Dong-hyun (Tae Shik)
Kim Kwang-shik (Detective Seo)
Won Woong-jae (Detective Jang)
Ye Soo-jung (young/old Byung Gu’s mother)
Jang Young-joo (old Byung Gu’s father)
Jung Bo-hoon (Ji Won)
Son Jong-hwan (Sooni’s father)
Kim Jee-cheon (man at hospital reception desk)
Lee In-hee (woman at hospital reception desk)
Yoon Young (nurse)
Oh Sang-moo (driver)
Kang In-seon (girl working in coffee shop)
Park Seung-woo (detective 1)
Kim Hoon-ho (detective 2)
Lee Dong-woon (detective 3)
Jeon Hyun-tae (detective in hallway)
Min Yoon-jae (woman cop)
Kim Young-chan (young Byung Gu)
Kim Roei-ha (prison officer)
Son Jeen-hwan (plant manager)
Lee Seung-chan (teacher)
Lee Moo-yeon (75th king)
Jung Jae-jin (Noah)
Oh Nami (Noah’s wife)
Lee Hyeon-ah (Noah’s daughter-in-law)
Kim Jung-kwu (Noah’s son)
Park Sung-ming (Adam)
Mina (Eve)
Ah Min-jung (girl on bus)

South Korea 2003
118 mins
Digital 4K (restoration)

Contains scenes of graphic violence, implied domestic abuse and disturbing archive footage

Restored in 4K in 2018 by the Korean Film Archive (KOFA)

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Programme notes and credits compiled by Sight and Sound and the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
Questions/comments? Contact the Programme Notes team by email