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Planetary Consensus

By Jennifer Flinn and Brian Hu

Despite receiving a tepid local reaction, Save the Green Planet!, with its crafty mix of comedy, violence, labor politics, and ecology, is becoming a cult hit in the west. APA writers Jennifer Flinn and Brian Hu discuss the film upon its limited theatrical release in the United States.

Brian Hu: Let’s start with the film’s disappointing response in Korea. What do you think were some reasons for this?

Jennifer Flinn: Well, I think the first problem with its release in Korea was that it was marketed exclusively as a comedy.  The posters and ads (click here for the Korean trailer: http://www.film2.co.kr/theater/trailers/T0000998.asx) didn't do anything to prepare audiences for the violence of the film. Or the emotional impact. Also, the film came out very close to another Shin Ha-gyun vehicle, Letters from Mars, which was a sappy melodrama, and even though the content was radically different, the titles were so similar people probably just didn't pay attention. With Letters from Mars, the studios were experimenting with Shin as a romantic lead. (He also had another romantic comedy, Surprise, but that one didn't do well either.) Basically, he has never caught on as a lead even though he's acknowledged as one of the most gifted actors working in Korean cinema today, and despite the fact that he consistently turns in critically well-received performances. 

To some extent, they didn't really know how to market Shin.  His image is kind of ill-defined; maybe that’s the drawback of having such range! He's also a lot younger than the sorts of actors who have typically displayed such range and ability, such as Song Kang-ho and Choi Min-shik, and while he's considered "cute," he's not really "handsome" by Korean standards. So he's too young for the meaty roles that go out to other actors, and not handsome enough for the typical melodrama.

BH: So it seems that one reason for the film's failure in Korea comes from audiences' expectations over Shin's star persona, a problem that obviously won't be an issue when the film is released in America, which could explain why it may actually do better here.

JF: Right.

BH: In addition to failing certain expectations of Shin as a star, could the film also have failed certain expectations over genre or political correctness?

JF: Well, contemporary Korean cinema frequently does a lot of genre-blending (although Save the Green Planet! has much more than most) so I don't think it's really that part that threw the domestic audience. And while overt political messages were impossible during much of Korean film history, political content has always been there, especially after democratization.

BH: Yes, I think it's important to note that strong political sentiments are present even in the most "mainstream" of Korean cinema, which is one of its most startling and impressive characteristics.

JF: Right.  Look at Oldboy, which is a very similar film in some ways, but was VERY successful domestically. But Oldboy had a few things going for it that Save the Green Planet! didn't . . .a big name actor, good marketing, and of course, it was a fantastic film. But even though I think Oldboy is great, Save the Green Planet! packs an emotional wallop well beyond it. Although I think it's a much harder film to watch. 

BH: It does seem that this film is "political" in a very different way than, say, Joint Security Area or Oldboy. Particularly in the depiction of violence and the relative lack of traditional melodrama, although we do get some at the end. Whereas in those films, political content is conveyed through issues of brotherhood and family, here it seems to be told through irony and humor, which I imagine was off-putting for some audiences.

JF: Absolutely. But I think the "melodrama" at the end is so expertly done it transcends the conventions. Usually that sort of work would seem cheap, but here it is absolutely essential to the film. Really, that last bit -- the credits --really makes the film for me. Without it, the film would be amazing, but the credits actually add a whole layer -- not just to the narrative, but the entire idea of the film.

BH: Maybe I just haven't seen enough Korean films, but my impression is that politics isn't as overt in mainstream comedies. Could this have added to the audience's displeasure? One exception could be YMCA Baseball, which is funny (and political) in a much more conventional way, perhaps proving my hunch.

JF: Hmm...despite the Japan bashing, I don't think YMCA was really that political, or at least not in any meaningful, thoughtful way. But my hunch is that you're right, and in recent years it's actually decreased in comedy and melodramas. But maybe I haven't been looking for it either.

BH: How are labor and class issues normally expressed in public discourse in Korea? How do Koreans usually respond to arguments for the worker?

JF: Wow, that's a huge question, and not one that I think I'm particularly able to answer . . .but I think it's shifted a bit in the past decades as more and more people are educated and in white collar jobs, service industry. But I gather that there's still a lot of sympathy for it.

BH: But would movie audiences be put off by a film so scathing of the interests of big business and the inhumanity of the new economy?

JF: No, not really. I mean, in Korea, movies that pit the little guy against large interests like corporations or the government are also popular. There's a David-and-Goliath kind of appeal to those movies that makes them broadly acceptable, I think.  I mean, who sides with big business or oppressive governments?  I think that's part of the beauty of this film: that it doesn't neatly break down like that, even though our protagonist is clearly on the David end of the scale.

BH: When and where did you first see the film?  What observations can you make about its reception?

JF: Well, I was living in a small city in Gyeongsangbuk-do when it came out.  It played in one of the four small theaters, but it left very quickly. I honestly confused it with Letter from Mars, so I missed it in theaters. But later, after it had already left, I started hearing really wonderful things about it in reviews, so I tracked down the DVD and watched it, and was completely blown away. I think I was really shocked by all the violence (even though Korean films are frequently VERY violent), but I also cried. Despite it being a "comedy," I was really drawn into it emotionally, and I didn't feel like I'd just watched a "funny" movie. It was more like having seen a tragedy where somebody was inexplicably telling jokes that cracked me up, but once again, not in the kind of way that other films have utilized humor. I feel like in violent but funny movies, the comedy part is to draw us back a bit from the hurt.  But here it was intrinsically tied to...actually part of the really awful things happening on screen. I mean, even the early scene where they're torturing him with exfoliating washcloths and menthol rub (which, by the way, were included in the special edition DVD release in Korea!) -- its funny and yet . . . ouch.

BH: Yes, the comedy in the film has a special role of distancing the viewer from the violence (thus de-glamorizing it), and allowing for an intellectual or critical response to the images of torture. Images of struggle and escape just don't look heroic when the man doing it is wearing a pink dress.

JF: Right! Part of the humor comes from a total subversion of traditional victim/hero, tortured/torturer depictions. Is there anything similar to this film in other Asian film traditions?

BH: I'd say the film has most in common with Japanese horror/sci-fi/comedies, such as those of Takashi Miike, although some of the offbeat comedic energy reminds me of Edmond Pang's films in Hong Kong. I think it's because of the film's similarities with other Asian films, particularly Miike's, that can explain its success as a cult hit in America and Europe. The west has cult traditions, and therefore can "handle" these films’ peculiarities.  This can be sensed in the comically offbeat, and intentionally amateurish website set up by Save the Green Planet!’s American distributor, Koch Lorber (http://www.savethegreenplanetmovie.com/).

JF: How do you think this film would be received in Japan or Hong Kong?

BH: It’s hard to say. I know that the Korean films which have succeeded in Hong Kong and Taiwan have been romances like My Sassy Girl, or horror films like Phone, and war films like Taegukgi.

JF: The Korean cinema that’s exported to the rest of Asia seems to not be the edgy films that are so popular in Korea. I'd say the mainstream in Korea is definitely edgier than in most countries, but it's not always those films that export well.

BH: In America, the only Korean films that enter are horror and action films such as Oldboy and A Tale of Two Sisters, which are what Western audiences are looking for in Asian cinema. Oh, and of course, the "art" directors like Hong Sang-soo, Im Kwon-taek, and Kim Ki-duk as well. So we can say that the conditions of the export of Korean cultural commodities are very different in East Asia than in the west, particularly because each local audience defines "Korea" differently.

JF: Right.

BH: Going back to Miike, I think it's worth noting that Western audiences see in these films not the social critique (as in Oldboy and Miike's films), cultural anxiety (as in John Woo's films), or folk tradition (as in A Tale of Two Sisters), but aestheticized violence, which, even though it's clearly interpreted as "Asian" (following a Woo or even Kurosawa tradition of violence), is something that can be remade or co-opted by Hollywood. After all, what makes the cult film so appealing is that, because they're foreign, politics can be set aside and cultural differences (such as poor subtitling or dubbing, as well as taboo sex and violence) can be celebrated separate from the foreign cultural context.

JF: Yeah, western audiences are NOT seeing these films in the same way the domestic audiences do, but that's where I think Save the Green Planet! has a lot more potential. Western audiences can totally miss the emotional resonance of Oldboy, but I think the ones in this film are much more universal. And even though there is a lot of the political here -- which is something tied to Korean history -- it's not of the kind that the average American viewer couldn't understand in general. I don't think anyone would miss the implications of the violence in the film, even if they have no personal experience with, say, corporal punishment in schools, or prison life.

BH: Yes, I think that Save the Green Planet!, because it literally addresses the problems of the planet, can retain much of its political critique when it travels internationally. When I first saw the film at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 2004, I had a long discussion afterward with a colleague about how spectacularly the film articulated an intelligent analysis of labor issues through experiments with genre. And while our points of reference were only Hollywood-dystopic sci-fi films like Total Recall and Terminator rather than anything "Korean", I think we shouldn't write off our reaction for its ignorance of Korean culture, since we were in fact talking about labor and class issues, which I imagine was the goal of the film.

JF: Wow! I'm glad you mention that, because I connected that aspect to more localized Korean labor movements. But it just goes to show that a more universal reading of it is not just possible, but easy for foreign audiences. I think the film shows us violence in a Korean context, but clearly its reach extends well beyond national and cultural borders.

BH: Yes. While I would not claim that all Asian films traveling abroad are interpreted radically (the appeal of Miike and John Woo in the west I'd say is enormously conservative and patriarchal), Save the Green Planet! seems to be sensitive to the changing currency of Asian action films globally, and thus has been presented in such a way to allow for those progressive, global interpretations.

JF: Do you think another country or culture could have made this film?  Or is there something exclusively "Korean" about it?  What for you makes this a “Korean” film?

BH: I can't say what makes it "Korean," because I'm no expert on Korean culture, nor do I want to essentialize Korean-ness in any way. However, I think your question is worth asking because the film, inevitably, will contribute to people's conceptions of "Koreanness." After seeing the film, I'd say that there's probably something very local about its attitude to business, especially given the anxieties over the economy since the late '90s.

JF: I wonder if this film could be successfully remade by another country?  Especially since that seems to be the big trend, particularly in the U.S., where studios are remaking several films from Korea (My Sassy Girl, My Wife is a Gangster, etc).  My feeling is the “cult” nature of its appeal here will keep it intact in original form, without the need for a remake. On the other hand though, I think it might translate very well for a remake.

BH: That's a good, and very pressing question. I think that if it were remade in Hollywood, the first thing to go would be the relationship between comedy, violence, and cultural critique -- which is what made the Korean version so successful. That's because Hollywood is so sensitive when it comes to taboo topics, especially when they're made to be "funny" (look at how Team America World Police was treated by the MPAA). It seems to me that the recent remakes of American films have been completely apolitical and PG-13. But that's why the cult audience is so removed from Hollywood in America. What makes a film cult, after all, is that it breaks the rules set by Hollywood. Which is different from the Korean situation, where the most "taboo" films can be made by the dominant, oligopolistic studios.

JF: That's one of the things I love about Korean films: they're so willing to experiment and really do some wonderful things, but they're considered "normal" nevertheless. The nearest I can think of for American film would be Tarantino's work.

BH: Which is no surprise then that it is Tarantino who is most active in bringing films like Hero and Chungking Express to the United States and forcing every western critic to study Shaw Brothers films and pretend they always knew who Chang Cheh and Lau Kar-leung were.

JF: And championing Oldboy.

BH: Yes.

JF: I have the feeling that a lot of the critical reactions to Asian films, as well as the general reaction, is really maturing, partially due to people like Tarantino with fond memories of badly dubbed chop-suey flicks.

BH: Yes, but the western audience for Asian films is therefore shaped by that kind of unserious (or "postmodern") interpretation of Asian cinema. I'm a little uncomfortable by the fact that this cultural exchange is largely one-way; that is, Americans get the cult films from other countries, which strengthens American cult culture, while the reverse is hardly true. I don't see Eraserhead midnight screenings in Asia, for example.

JF: I wonder if there isn't some underground scene; because most of my time in Korea was spent in smaller cities and rural areas, I wouldn't know for sure.  Maybe in Seoul. On the other hand, there are several big film festivals, including the Pusan International Film Festival, and a fantasy film festival too.

BH: Oh, tell me more about the fantasy film festival, because this seems to address a certain cult culture.

JF: There’s the Pucheon International Fantastic Film Festival every July (http://www.pifan.or.kr/intro.asp) and there's the Jeonju International Film Festival (www.jiff.or.kr), focusing on digital and alternative movies. Most consumption of non-mainstream foreign films occurs at festivals in Korea, not in theater runs.

BH: In fact, Save the Green Planet! won the best picture award at the Pucheon International Fantastic Film Festival.

Date Posted: 4/14/2005