Belief is a powerful motivational force and Lee Beong-gu believes very strongly in his cause. Tony Robbins could learn a thing or two about self-belief and personal power from this social outcast. When it comes to inserting foreign objects into anal passages in the name of discovering the truth Lee hesitates only to pop his favourite brand of PCP pills before plunging ahead in a demented effort to have his victim reveal the whereabouts of the Prince of Andromeda. Lee’s convinced, you see, that the head of a major industrial company is actually an Andromedan with blood ties to the very first king of The Milky Way’s neighbouring galaxy. So Lee, with the assistance of his girlfriend Su-ni, kidnaps said industrialist, applies restraints, shaves the body and head clean of hair and then begins to ruthlessly torture the captive with a clear eyed precision and determination that is at once hilarious and horrific.

Save the Green Planet! is genre film that meditates on the nature of belief, suffering and existence, what marks this film out as unique is the choice of genre, STGP is not an emotional drama but a comedy-horror. That director Jun-han Jeong manages to elicit many subtleties of emotion from the tale of a beekeeper driven to revenge after a long life of suffering is a tribute to his ability to direct wildly different yet diverging styles and narrative arcs.

It swiftly becomes clear that Lee’s determined theorising may just be a cover for more personal motives. Verbal clues are bandied about between Lee and the captive, Kang Man-shik, and so begins a war of denial and insistence which Jun-han orchestrates in order that the viewer might find it as difficult as possible to decide if Kang Man really is an alien or if Lee is actually as mad as a box of frogs.
 
Thrown into this mix is the police investigation into the disappearance of such a wealthy, influential individual. A young hotshot detective straight out of university approaches a seasoned detective who expresses an interest in the case and this leads to a confrontation between Lee and the more experienced officer which in turn leads to one of the most inspired death scenes in cinematic history. As the story complicates, the film weakens (there are some flat derivative moments as Lee struggles to keep his hostage hidden from the inquisitive police detective) and it is an undeniable fact that the opening third is more arresting but as the film reaches it’s conclusion it picks up pace again and patience is rewarded liberally.
 
Throughout this film Jun-han Jeong forces the viewer to pass judgement on Lee (it is impossible to watch this film without muttering “what a crazy bastard” at least once) only to then slyly reveal a nugget of information that will force the viewer to re-evaluate their position. The drawback is that the viewer is required to invest a lot of faith into the movie, having to wait until the final five minutes for the whole truth to come out and as the film is roughly twenty minutes overlong it is easy to imagine itchy trigger fingers gently stroking the stop button on remote controls. However, Jun-han invests enough energy into each scene that most viewers will be able to hang on until the end. Ultimately this confrontational, yet elliptical style ensures that by the end of the movie it is impossible not to be emotionally effected when the fate of Lee is revealed, a fate that turns out to have been genuinely inevitable.

If only motivational gurus such as Tony Robbins would offer courses designed to help people believe in new and interesting kinds of cinema then films like Save the Green Planet! would have the kind of widespread recognition that they deserve.

Rating: 8/10

Review By Stephen Hepplestone