Search - Save the Green Planet on DVD

Twisted, strange and wrong... in the best way possible.

Subterranean | Kenmore, WA | 06/07/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Save The Green Planet" is many things. It is funny, parodic and innovative. It is well made, although the story isn't terribly well constructed. It is sickeningly violent and gruesome, maddeningly cagey about its plot points, and completely and utterly insane. It's also a great movie, because of everything above.

It's important to note that this is not a film for everyone. The torture scenes are painful and plentiful, and make up the bulk of the film. They are NOT done in a slapstick fashion, as the title, the box cover and opening sequence might suggest. There is repeated electroshock, stabbings, stranglings and an even gorier plot twist later on. Suffice it to say, this isn't a kids movie.

"Save The Green Planet" is about Byung Goo, a man who is even more messed up than is initially revealed when he begins saying that wealthy, successful industrialist Kang is an alien from the planet Andromeda. In fact, Byung Goo is patently psychotic, a kidnapper who cons his tightrope-dancing girlfriend into helping him carry out his paranoid schemes.

All the while, he pops powerful metamphetamines, robs banks to take care of his comatose mother, raises bees and creates manniquins. Byung Goo becomes the movie's simultaneous hero and villain, and it's clear that our sympathies are supposed to lie with this utterly screwed up loser. The odd thing is, more often than not, we do sympathize with him.

If you think that's weird enough as it is, the movie doesn't stop there. The tone swerves wildly from whacked-out comedy to brutal violence to teeth-on-edge suspense, swinging from one to the other as rapidly and disorientingly as possible. The plot is equally wobbly, the psychopathically quick and risky twists constantly threatening to lose the viewer. Some serious suspension of disbelief is required much of the time, just because it's unrealistic that several main characters haven't died from all the damage they've sustained.

But as many things that can be said against it can also be said for it. "Save the Green Planet" is a true original, a movie that only a total mind-job could make and is interesting, if not always pleasant, to watch. It helps that there are a number of entertaining references dispersed every so often to keep the viewer going, and that there's the occaisional glimmer of sanity in everything that's so terribly off-kilter. The filmmaking is as good as anything else in the film, well-executed and often joltingly original. It's a visionary film, if an undeniably strange one."

Shocking to the point of madness

sammy88 | Dublin,Ireland | 05/23/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I think this movie was outrageously brilliant as the storyline was wicked. It's about a couple who believe theirs Aliens among us who look just like humans, as they feel that they are the only ones to stop this madness. They kidnap theses supposable aliens and tortured to the point of no return. This movie rocks in every way, its suspense keeps you watching this most usually story that take's you into a completely different setting all together.

Some of the scenes in this movie are unimaginable and shocking; I feel if you have seen Seven or Saw you will be able to stand the heat of this remarkable movie.


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Holy crap.

Peter Worthington | Calgary, Alberta Canada | 08/09/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This movie is amazing. I work at an independant theater and we gave this film its western Canadian premiere on Friday. I just saw it last night, and the fact that I'm already looking for the DVD says something. The poster is entirely misleading, this is the creepiest movie I have seen in a loooooong time. That doesn't mean that the movie is bad, far from it, just don't expect a lighthearted B-movie style romp. I won't reveal any of the plot, but damn is it good.I would have given 5 stars, but I'm not sure what the (Tame) in the title means. If they censored it too much, it wouldn't be as good, as part of the amaing effectiveness of this movie is in how unrelenting the camera work is in showing the scenes of torture. Therefor, a 5 star movie, knocked down a star because of the potential for censorship in this edition."