ByungGu(SHIN HaKyun), an ordinary young man living in Korea, believes that all of the earth's social ills are the evil work of aliens. That's why he knows that unless he can meet the prince from Andromeda before the total lunar eclipse, planet earth will be in grave danger. To meet the prince, he must find an extraterrestrial living on earth. So ByungGu kidnaps the most logical suspect, KANG ManShik(BAEK YunSik), the president and CEO of YooJae Chemical Company. Thus starts the battle between ByungGu, who's trying to uncover a secret alien plot to destroy the earth, and CEO Kang, who thinks ByungGu is nuts and is trying desperately to escape from him. Only four hours remain until the total lunar eclipse. When the eclipse is over, time will run out for planet earth. Can ByungGu single-handedly save the planet?
Through the little I'd seen of it through pictures, posters and description, Save the Green Planet for some reason had a place in my mind as a sort of quirky Kim Ji-woon-esque comedy about an insane alien-catcher. However, with its insane blend of genres, the film defies such an explanation as it explores a myriad of themes. The genres change in the blink of an eye, from a dark comedy, to a murder thriller, to a touching character drama and back to a dark comedy to repeat the process. And on his debut feature, Jeong Jun-hwan does it seamlessly with characters to hold it together and a consistent dark undertone that takes it to the very end. There's just a number of appealing situations and elements that makes it easy to see how Save the Green Planet has a future as a cult film that simply doesn't limit itself with rules.
Lee Byeong-gu is convinced the world will be destroyed by aliens and devotes his life to the research and destruction of them to become a hero. With an impending lunar eclipse in Seven Days, he begins to take drastic measures by kidnapping the man whom he suspects to be the head of the aliens on earth, and the one he can use to contact the alien prince or do something to save everyone. With the help of his rope-balancing girl friend and a number of cops on his trail, Byeong-gu must use all the knowledge at his disposal to do something before it's too late.
Byeong-gu's first line, to his girlfriend as he first reveals to her, and the audience, in a darkly humorous slideshow is "you probably think I'm crazy". The utterance of that phrase essentially sets one of the most appealing elements of the film on its way to make the film worthy of remembrance. Whenever you think you have it all figured out, whether you have a twist ending pinned on, or you whole-heartedly sympathize and understand Byeong-gu, Jun-hwan will make you doubt yourself. The intensity isn't particularly in the idea that the earth is going to be destroyed, but whether Byeong-gu is right or not. At once, the situation seems to be direct and spot-on that the kidnapped victim is an alien, but a cloud of ambiguity subtly descends before anything in the script even suggests it. Jun-hwan knows exactly how he wants to make the audience feel, and what points he wants to make in his writing, so he has the ultimate position to craft a fine film.
Using a meticulously decorated rural home for Byeong-gu, Jun-hwan sets us in the one fearsome location for an unexpected amount of plot events to occur. There is just a beautiful amount of detail paid attention to Byeong-gu's upper living area, complete with minimal items of suspicion, save his collection of alien books and movies. We descend into his workshop for only brief moments to see it filled with a number of mannequins that he apparently hand-makes for side money. That doesn't even compare to the dank and dreary section he devotes to his alien evidence and interrogation, which we surprisingly feel the most comfortable with. The plot is quite tense much of the time, but whenever we leave the confines of his isolated home, it always seems to quite noticeably increase. Maintaining this mood with a vastly interesting character holds the film together through whatever odd tonal shifts it undergoes.
Shin Ha-kyun, somehow manages to outdo his performance in Sympathy for Mr Vengeance by addressing our sympathies first, like he did previously, but can twist our emotions around with some questionable actions and changes in the viewer perspective. Jun-hwan intelligently switches the view around to give attention to the detectives, or the mysterious Man-shik (the kidnapped "alien") and arouses tons of doubt. The ease and fun Jun-hwan has in manipulating out sympathies is ever apparent, and then he manages to tie it to the themes he wants to discuss.
While these themes start out seeming highly derivative and cliché, the way Jun-hwan deals with them is rather inspirational. He takes a sadist perspective courtesy of Miike and delivers a number of special rushes in the last thirty to fourty-five minutes to end the film with a bang. With his energetic use of extreme close-ups combined with computer effects, Jun-hwan alleviates a modern style similar to Fincher's Seven and Fight Club to coincide with his youthful attitude on the themes at play. In the end, he clearly makes his point and hits it home harder just because we have a character in the midst of all of this that ties us down and keeps us fixated with concern and curiosity.
