Bugonia (2025) is a delightful and dark satire that’s definitely worth checking out, but that doesn’t mean you should skip the wild Korean sci-fi comedy that inspired it. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, Bugonia focuses on Teddy Gatz, a conspiracy theorist who has become convinced that pharmaceutical company executive Michelle Fuller is actually an alien. Kidnapping Michelle and subjecting her to inhumane and bizarre tactics in an effort to get her to break, Teddy’s instability only escalates an already intense situation.
Grimly hilarious and surprisingly emotional at times, Bugonia is one of the most bizarre Hollywood films of the year. However, it’s got nothing on Save the Green Planet! (2003), the Jang Joon-hwan film with much of the same plot. However, the unique elements of Save the Green Planet!, especially the more tragic character elements, make it a deeply memorable and strikingly timeless film about environmentalism and capitalism. Here’s how the modern South Korean classic inspired Bugonia, and why you should check out both films.
What Is 'Save the Green Planet!' About?
Directed and written by Jang Joon-hwan, Save the Green Planet! follows many of the same plot beats as Bugonia—their biggest differences come in the cultural touchstones and just how much weirder Save the Green Planet! is willing to be. The film focuses on Lee Byeong-gu, played by Shin Ha-kyun. Similar to Teddy, Byeong-gu is a disturbed man who has been personally wronged by the pharmaceutical company whose CEO he is targeting. However, Byeong-go goes through some even more ridiculous interrogation methods than Teddy does.
This speaks to the overall harsher tone of the original film. While there’s a certain level of wackiness that comes with the material (like the bee murder and circus performers), there’s a dark underbelly at the core of the film. It doesn’t cast Byeong-gu as a hero, just like Bugonia resists any temptation to make Teddy necessarily likable. Save the Green Planet! highlights how, even in the face of death and destruction, everyone, from the bureaucracy and capitalist authority to the average worker and regular families, humanity has a habit of making things worse than actually fixing them.
How 'Save the Green Planet!' Inspired 'Bugonia'
Overall, this fits the more overtly strange approach that Joon-hwan takes to the material as opposed to Lanthimos’ version of the same story. In Bugonia, Teddy is helped out by his neurodivergent cousin Don, but in Save the Green Planet!, Byeong-gu works alongside his circus performer girlfriend, Su-ni. There’s a single prominent police officer in Bugonia, as opposed to the far more committed police force that tries to find Kang Man-shik after he's been kidnapped. In this film, the CEO is a man, with Bugonia adding new layers to the character by gender flipping the character.
The film’s key similarities speak to the ways that Bugonia is a very faithful adaptation of the original. In fact, it is so specifically rooted in the original that the remake was almost directed by Joon-hwan. Development on the remake began in 2020, with Will Tracy—one of the screenwriters on the similarly compelling satire The Menu (2022)—writing the script. Many of the changes to the story, including the decision to gender-flip Kang into Michelle, were spurred on by Ari Aster. The Hereditary (2018) and Eddington (2025) director serves as a producer on the film and was key to bringing in Tracy. Joon-hwan was initially set to direct the English-language remake of his earlier work, but Lanthimos and Emma Stone eventually joined the film instead..
Is 'Save the Green Planet!' Worth Watching After 'Bugonia'?
Save the Green Planet! and Bugonia make for an interesting pairing, especially for those revisiting the original after seeing the remake. Bugonia is a more modern movie, with a clearer focus on the current state of the world. Save the Green Planet!, by contrast, is from an era where social media as we know it today was non-existent. However, it speaks to the enduring power of Save the Green Planet!’s central narrative that most of it could be accurately translated to Bugonia without losing the sardonic spirit of the original. It’s very much from the same style of South Korean satirical genre-dramas that produced Parasite (2019), and it’s a great movie for fans of that Oscar-winning modern classic.
Save the Green Planet! may be wackier than Bugonia at times, but this is only the surface-level element of the film. There’s a deeper satirical core that comes across harsher in Save the Green Planet! and more tragically in Bugonia. Both films are wildly entertaining and bolstered by terrific performances, along with genuinely shocking plot twists at the end of the films. If you liked Bugonia, then Save the Green Planet! makes for a compelling contrast to the film that was inspired by it.
