Korean cinema is unique in many ways. In this course alone, we have discussed the many avenues in which culture and history are represented and reflected in Korean cinema, resulting in unique blends of genre, types of filmmaking, and story. Though technically a science fiction film, Save the Green Planet! (Jang 2003) blends comedy, crime, and horror. This type of genre blending, where “Korean popular cinema not only features mixing genres by also manifests mixing sensibilities-from new waveish stylization to blockbuster sensations, from art house avant-gardism to commercial popularity, from historical nostalgia to post-crisis social criticism” allow for films such as Save the Green Planet! to simultaneously mock and bring light to societal issues like capitalism (Li 21). While discussing various historical and cultural factors, the film follows Byeong-gu, a troubled reclusive man who theorizes that the country’s top business men are actually aliens from outer space. The inclusion of comedy within Korean horror films creates stark contrast across scenes. For example, in the film, scenes would jump from having audiences in fits of laughter during a "comedic" scene such as when Su-ni comes crashing in to save Byeong-gu, but silently watching in horror in scenes such as some of the torture scenes or the graphic montage of historical genocides and wars. Even the poster and marketing material for the film paints the idea of the film being primarily a comedy, although there are scenes that definitely contrast that notion. While many western films rely on gore to create horror, the inclusion of comedy allows for contrast between scenes, overall, allowing for a more terrifying experience that often alludes to social criticism of global capitalism that is unique to Korean Cinema.
First, the film and films like it are shaped by the historical context. Following the harshest economic crisis to hit South Korea in 1997, Save the Green Planet! describes the aftermath of this very crisis through its protagonist, Byeong-gu. Save the Green Planet! begins with Byeong-gu’s voice, he says “you probably think I’m crazy.” Soon, audiences become aware of Byeong-gu’s hypothesis, believing that high ranking individuals such as CEOs are all actually extraterrestrials from a planet named Andromeda. As Byeong-gu explains his plan to his partner in crime, Su-ni, the camera pans from the projected image of Man-shik Kang, the CEO of Yuje Chemicals, to reveal Byeong-gu himself, his face half lit in the dark and dingy room. Soon, we find Byeong-gu once again, now dressed in a black trash bag and a helmet covered in gadgets and wires. He and Su-ni are staked out in a luxury parking garage. From the first scenes of the film, audiences are left to believe that the film is to be a parody or comedy of sorts, though the subject matter may be heavier. For example, this film summed up without the comedic aspect could be summarized as a film about a man who kidnaps and tortures others, believing they are aliens. It is clear that the tone drastically changes with the inclusion of these comedic elements, allowing for the critique of these societal problems to be easily digested by audiences and come across as mockery.
Soon, the luxury car with Man-shik enters, the driver pulls out a drunk Man-shik from the back seat who is speaking in what sounds like a mix between gibberish and a new language. The personification of capitalist greed and well off society is clear through Man-shik within the first few moments of his screen time as he argues with the driver about his $40 taxi fare and threatens the driver's job. As Man-shik walks away, he mumbles to himself, the line full of irony “making a big fuss out of $20. He thinks I’m made of money.” Then, Byeong-gu appears, and a fight quickly ensues as Byeong-gu struggles to apprehend Man-shik. The stark difference in class between the two characters expresses “the polarized social inequity between the rich and the poor, and the battle is also staged between the high and the low” (Li 27). The high and the low are expressed through the physical as Man-shik is held underground in Byeong-gu’s home. Man-shik, while a high ranking member of both human society and then later revealed to be high ranking in alien society as well, is belittled and taken down to beneath Byeong-gu, literally by being put in the basement but also through his demasculinization. Man-shik is quickly shaved, put into sequence underwear and later is seen wearing a nightgown. This plays with the dynamic of class structures and puts Man-shik in perspective, his power quite literally stripped from him.
In the scene where Man-shik comes to, Byeong-gu goes into a screaming fit, explaining how Man-shik is responsible for what has happened to his mother and the downfall of humanity. Following this, the first stark contrast begins. Up to this point, the film has come across as a comedy full of ridiculous action, crazy camera maneuvers, and dialogue. Here, the film begins to show its sinister undertones as Byeong-gu begins to torture Man-shik. He approaches Man-shik with a large smile, the sweat and craze ever present in his eyes. It is then that he begins to electrocute Man-shik. And yet, the comedic elements “transforms this bloody scene into an extremely ridiculous comedy, while [Byeong-gu] pseudo science fiction logical, which seems to be informed by B-pictures and comic books, overthrow the ‘real’ logic and rationality that the kidnapped CEO tries to convince him of” (Li 29). Additionally, in one of the most graphic scenes of the film, Man-shik wakes after his failed escape attempt to find himself crucified, nails and all. Byeong-gu explains that he used anesthetics so that Man-shik would feel nothing. While threatening to chop off his leg, audiences squirm in their seats, unsettled by the sudden change in tone. After inflicting a less severe injury on Man-shik’s leg, Byeong-gu leaves. Man-shik quickly puts the anesthetics to the test, removing his hands from the nails. As he pulls his hands forward, the camera focuses on the wounds, the nail going deeper into Man-shik until he is free, “the anesthesia gives the pain he would otherwise experience a wholly phantasmatic character, externalizing it outside the proper boundaries of the flesh” (Paik 78). The film thus far is full of comedy and as we see here this “very generic mode that is used for conveying such social criticism” on high class society (Li 20). The torture of Man-shik is still that–torture. We as audiences are questioned at this moment, wondering who to root for and what is still within the realm of comedy ultimately creating “crime scenes… [which] are often represented as simultaneously horrifying, puzzling, and disturbingly funny” (Li 29). In summary, the scenes of comedy are able to ease the tension across audiences, setting up the horror and gruesomeness to feel even larger than it is if the inclusion of comedy was omitted.
Still, the dialogue between characters, their actions, and the camera work give the impression that this film is a comedy, through and through. In another scene, Byeong-gu is seen fighting with an old classmate from high school. The scene begins almost like a western, Byeong-gu dressed in his anti-alien attire and the jingle of bells through the soundtrack. The two begin to fight and Byeong-gu flies up into the air, performing in a sort of martial arts and beating his former classmate to the ground. When Byeong-gu defeats him, a crowd of elderly people begin to clap in celebration around them, only for the scene to cut to reality, exposing the fight as an intrusive thought from Byeong-gu. In the real world, Byeong-gu is the victim, pushed out of his daydream by his former classmate’s harsh push and words. Additionally, in these small snippets, the world at large is revealed such as when his former classmate reveals he had just been laid off from work. These moments push the level of absurdity in the film, all while using “class antagonism… as a crucial element behind the audience’s feelings of hesitation about the plot” (Paik 78). These scenes keep audiences disoriented, as we relate to Byeong-gu’s spaciness nature, his natural aloofness, and overall, begin to see him as an extension of ourselves.
Soon, Man-shik comes to realize the various points of trauma in Byeong-gu’s childhood. Starting from a young age, Byeong-gu endured the loss of his father, relentless bullying, incarceration and abuse, the violent death of a girlfriend, and finally, the sickness that left his mother in a coma-like state. It is a never ending cycle of suffering. We find that “parallel with this hardest social/economic crisis in Korean history” audiences begin to sympathize with Byeong-gu’s descent into madness. His first victim occurred paralleling the economic crisis, in 1997. Byeong-gu is an example of the anti-hero clown explained in Li’s work, which “externalizes the private into the public” by “re-establishing the public nature of the human figure… creating that distinctive means for externalizing a human being, via parodic laughter” (Li 27). Byeong-gu’s character is troubling and honest. While Man-shik is the victim in many senses in the film, audiences cannot help but feel for Byeong-gu and root for him. After receiving information from Man-shik of the life saving antidote, Byeong-gu rushes to the hospital in a final attempt to save his mother’s life. Again, this scene is stark in contrast with what we have witnessed so far, truly melodramatic. When he is unable to save his mother, it adds to the tumultuous list of tragedy in Byeong-gu’s life.
In one of the most jarring scenes in the film, Man-shik begins to explain that humanity itself has always been hostile and full of death at the hands of other humans. It is due to this nature of violence that aliens first came to planet Earth, named to them the green planet, to save humanity from self destruction and violence. In this scene, paired with animations of chimpanzees, graphic historical images of genocide, dealth, war, and so on flash across the screen as Man-shik states “you humans are insane, no other species in the universe abuses its own nor enjoys doing it” blaming the violence on a gene implanted by human creators. Archival images such as the holocaust, bodies being thrown into piles, roting bodies and sickly children are pasted together, reminding audiences not only of the atrocities we’ve seen in the film so far, but of the graphic and violent nature of human history. This scene highlights to the greatest extent the message behind the film, a critique on human on human crime and violence, exploitation and hatred. Here, “by effectively mixing the artistic with the popular” and with historical images, “contemporary Korean films establish their peculiar means to thematize social criticism through popular genre forms'' (Li 21). The sequence in which the graphic historical images are utilized is the best example of how the film has set up audiences thus far. Prior to Man-shik’s explanation of human history, again we are primed with thinking that much like the majority of the film, this scene will largely be comedic. For example, while the graphic images are displayed, we still hear Man-shik's voice, unwavered by the change in visual tone. We as audiences are unsuspecting of where the story will go, having now heard various monologues from different characters about alien lore. Though funny at first, the images quickly change the tone, and audiences are stunned silent by the graphic images, the horror intruding on the comedy.
Lastly, no Korean horror film is over without the inescapable tragic ending. Though throughout the film, audiences can recognize Byeong-gu as a villain of sorts, kidnapping and torturing his victims, in his final moments, we cannot help but sympythize when he is ultimately killed. The inevitability of his death is yet again, overshadowed by the final moment of the film, when the biggest level of dramatic irony occurs. Throughout the film, we have been told to believe that Byeong-gu is out of his mind. For the entirety of the film, we were led to believe that Byeong-gu was incorrect. For example, the victims of Byeong-gu all turn out to be abusers of his past, revealing that each of the “aliens” were part of the tragic events that occured in Byeong-gu’s life. This ultimately creates doubt to viewers, and just as the investigation unravels with the police, we believe that Byeong-gu is a troubled individual unable to accept his past and instead, adopting a philosophy and way of thinking that puts all his abusers as aliens over human beings. In the first moments of the film, Byeong-gu explains to Su-ni in great detail the anatomy of these aliens. His demeanor is frantic and much of his dialogue comes across as pure comedy. When he is told human history by Man-shik, audiences believe that once again, he is being tricked, and yet, it is revealed that he was right all along, down to the details. As Man-shik is escorted out of Yuje Chemicals by police officers, a UFO appears, taking Man-shik and revealing him as an alien. While this too is a trope among Korean horror and comedy films, the distance from the truth is revealed to be not there, but the shock of realizing that everything we have been told, down to the ridiculous theory of hair telepathy is true, is what truly sells this film.
Save the Green Planet! and films like it ultimately distinguish Korean film among many counterparts. In recent years, films like Parasite (Bong 2019) similarly follow this type of genre blending, and as noted, the film was widely successful in its critique of capitalism, however, having watched Save the Green Planet!, it is clear that this is a trend among Korean filmmakers. While one could argue for days on what genre best fits the film, it is clear that while horror and comedy co-exist in the film, it is set up in a way where horror begins to intrude into the comedy, allowing us to become tourists in the world of Byeong-gu and the working class. Ultimately, the film criticizes capitalism and upper class society, pulling audiences in by sympathizing with Byeong-gu only to have him too fall victim to his environment. In all, contrast and genre blending are able to create a much more interesting interpretation of a conventional science fiction topic, shocking audiences and eventually, leaving audiences with a sense of dread, having experienced the rollercoaster of their lives.
Work Cited
Li, Jinying. “Clowns, crimes, and capital: popular crime-comedies in post-crisis Korea.” Film International 7 (2009): 20-34.
PAIK, PETER Y. “THE DEFENSE OF NECESSITY: On Jang Joon-Hwan’s Save the Green Planet.” From Utopia to Apocalypse: Science Fiction and the Politics of Catastrophe, NED-New edition, University of Minnesota Press, 2010, pp. 71–92, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttv5z9.5. Accessed 21 Apr. 2022.
Save the Green Planet!. Dir. Jang Joon-hwan. 2003, CJ Entertainment.
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