Saturday, September 19, 2009

WTF Korea?!?: Save the Green Planet

I've picked on a lot of Asian nations for their terrible or strange cinema, so Korea should be no different. They have mostly gotten a free pass for the sheer awesomeness of The Host, but no more! This movie is so strange, so peculiar and so...odd that you must know about it. At the same time, it is so bi-polar that it breaks my Bi-Polar Cinema scale in half! I have a lot to say, but also nothing to say. To first view this movie properly, you need to watch the trailer. Don't worry, it really tells you nothing that I won't say in the first paragraph. What it presents you is a very misleading picture of what it is to come. Incidentally, using the same theme song in the trailer as the Dr. Phibes films will not help you, movie. Sit back, relax and enjoy...
The movie begins with the rantings of a crazy man who thinks that there is an alien conspiracy. He believes that his boss is an alien who can lead him to the alien prince that will blow the whole thing apart. He schemes, alongside his fat ballerina assistant, to kidnap the man in a parking lot. Since the man is very drunk, he proves to be easy prey. They take him back to their lair and...shave his head and take off nearly all of his clothes. Okay, you lost me already. The man awakens a bit later and reacts the way most people would to the kidnapper's crazy story. He is very upset with him, which only leads our hero to...torture him with electricity? Why are you our hero again? There proves to be more motivation here as the boss is an executive at a pharmaceutical company that inadvertently poisoned his mother. He maintains that his motives are all about saving the Earth however. Right...
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Save is mostly an excuse to show our 'hero' going crazy and talking about his theories. His assistant loses her focus when the torture gets really intense. I must point out that this is billed as a sci-fi horror comedy. After having his leg broken, the executive lures our hero away with the promise of a cure for his mother. He gets loose, but cannot get out. He does learn about the tragic past of our hero. Dead father and girlfriend? Check. Oh and he finds the records of other 'tests' done by our 'hero.' By tests, I mean eight dead guys who proved not to be aliens. Gee, you think?!? We get a sub-plot with a detective who gets really close to finding out the truth. Our villainous hero catches the man snooping and sicks his attack bees on the man, killing him. Did I just write that sentence? His young partner gets involved, but does not really do much. He finds the executive, but gets captured when the fat ballerina intervenes. They take both of them to the company's building after the boss admits to being an alien. Of course, he is obviously lying at this point.
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It all builds up to this as the boss manages to use a nearby machine to take down his two captors. He even kills the ballerina girl! Now who will look horribly inappropriate for their profession?!? The police arrive in time as our villain/hero gets up for one last attack and shoot him. He wonders aloud about who will protect the Earth in his absence. The boss is let go by the police, only to be grabbed by aliens. Apparently, he was one the whole time! The serial killer was actually write about everything, including cutting off the man's hair to keep him from communicating telepathically! By the way, don't ask me how that works please. The angry alien boss was actually the Prince the whole time as well! In the end, the aliens decide that the experiment that is Earth is a failure and blow it up. The End.
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What to say about this movie. Does it have comedic moments? Yes. Does it have lots and lots of torture? Yes. Does it have strong sci-fi elements? Sort of. The movie is so insane and random that it just made my head hurt. That is not even addressing the giant car pile-up of plot twists at the end or the many parts that I did not mention in the full review. For example, our villain-hero has a random kung-fu fight- complete with wire work- in town. Does it add anything? No. I would be remiss without mentioning the 'bee shooting' joke which convinced me that the film would be fun. Thanks a lot, you dead bees! I can't recommend this movie to most people because it is so insane. Maybe you guys might enjoy it, but I didn't. I get the idea, but hate the execution. This is Sachiko Hanai all over again!
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Coming up next, H.G. Lewis creates a film about magic, policemen and power tools. Stay tuned...

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