This is a jaw-droppingly bizarre movie from Korea that mixes scenes of gruesome torture and violence with comedy and heartbreaking profundity. Perhaps as a result of too many amphetamines and violent incidents in his past, beekeeper Lee Byeong Gu (Sin Ha-Gyun) has become convinced that an unscrupulous business tycoon (Kan Man-Shik) is actually an alien from the planet Andromeda. Lee's frumpy acrobat girlfriend (Hwang Jung-Min) helps him abduct the "alien" and torture him into confessing. Meanwhile, a hangdog detective is following a trail leading to Lee's hideout high in the mountains.
Let the timid be warned: this is not the antipollution comedy that the title might indicate. Man's inhumanity to man is certainly depicted--as in events like Korea's 1980 Kwangju riots--but there's more going on here than any one summation could describe: bees attack, a pet dog named Earth dines on human remains, alternate theories of evolution are posited (i.e. Noah's Ark was a deep submarine carrying DNA samples); an entire lifetime of films, political turmoil, anime and manga are boiled down and distilled into one profound, multi-textual allegory. Adventurous viewers will be in for one hell of a ride, as this film dares go where few have gone before, yet it does so with heart and intellect to match its wicked humor and headlong momentum.
DVD Features:
Region [unknown]
Keep Case
Widescreen - 1.85
Audio:
Surround Sound 5.1 English
Additional Release Material:
Interviews
Deleted Scenes
Behind-the-Scenes Featurette
Original Korean Trailer
US Theatrical Trailer
Director of Photography
Hong Gyeong-Pyo: Director of Photography, SAVE THE GREEN PLANET (2005)
Review 1:
"It's in GREEN PLANET that you'll find evidence of the real strength of Korea's new cinema."
Source: Sight and Sound
p.84 05/01/2005
Review 2:
"[T]his ambitious hallucination is one hell of a genre pastiche."
Source: Premiere
p.126 10/01/2005
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