Save the Green Planet

MOVIE #1,116 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 08.21.23 • VOLUME LII • I don’t think there’s ever been a bigger tonal discrepancy between what a movie poster looks like and what the actually movie looks like. And these other ones are even worse!…

This one (French DVD release) is probably the ‘best’ though I feel like it’s not a good design and is still off…


This is a damn good movie though. The color-grading and some of the editing choices reminded me that it was still 2003 in South Korea too, but I am gonna make a point moving forward not to keep harping on about my hatred of the mid-00s film aesthetic. I’m a broken record.

Writer-director Jang Joon-hwan has a fascinating though limited feature-length filmography. He’s only made three pictures in the last 20 years and they all seem vastly different (although he’s allegedly been tapped to helm the English-language remake of this, his debut). But he clearly has a sense of style…


As previously mentioned, this is way more gritty and gruesome than one would ever expect given the initial goofy hats and movie poster and title. The unveiling of this dark world is done with patience and I loved how more and more of the torture chamber is slowly revealed and the movie just keeps getting darker and darker, making you wonder why this green planet deserves to me saved at all. And while, sure, that point is made explicit by the film’s ultra-convoluted, totally batshit, 2001-aping, expo dump of an ending, it didn’t dilute the experience for me. It’s all too weird and unique to pick nits. It’s an impactful and memorable movie. One that legitimately earns its cult status. Another big win for TRUE RANDOM!

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Save the Green Planet! (Korean title: 지구를 지켜라!, Jigureul Jikyeora!) is a South Korean science fiction comedy film written and directed by Jang Joon-hwan. The basic story begins when the main character, Lee Byeong-gu, kidnaps another man, convinced that the latter is an alien. It was released on April 4, 2003.