Bugonia vs. the Korean Original: Where the Remake Dares and Where It Plays It Safe

Spoiler alert: major spoilers for Bugonia (and Save the Green Planet) ahead.

Yorgos Lanthimos finally unleashed Bugonia, and yep, it is as oddball and razor-edged as you think. The film is an English-language redo of Jang Joon-hwan's 2003 cult sci-fi thriller Save the Green Planet, with Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons anchoring a story that starts as a kidnapping and ends in full-on cosmic horror. It is a black comedy, a tragedy, and somehow a nature documentary coda, all in under two hours. If that sentence makes sense to you, you are probably already in the target audience.

• Directed by: Yorgos Lanthimos
• Cast: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Stavros Halkias
• Release date: October 24, 2025 (US)
• Runtime: 1h 58m
• IMDb: 7.7/10
• Rotten Tomatoes: 86% critics, 86% audience
• Status: In theaters (USA)

What Bugonia changes (and why it hits different)

Both films follow a kidnapper convinced a powerful CEO is actually an alien preparing an invasion. That core stays intact. The big swing this time is who that CEO is: in Save the Green Planet, he is a middle-aged man; in Bugonia, Emma Stone plays the executive, Michelle Fuller. It is a smart swap that shifts the energy of every interrogation scene and adds a sharper edge to the power dynamics.

Another key twist: the reveal about the CEO being an alien still happens in both versions, but the tonal bent is different. In Bugonia, the alien reads as conflicted and mournful rather than cold or contemptuous. That one change reverberates through the ending in a way that is more melancholy than cruel.

On the kidnapper side, the abductors are mirrored but not cloned. In Save the Green Planet, Byeong-gu carries trauma that fuels his Grand Plan. Bugonia keeps that trauma idea but reshapes it around Teddy, whose backstory has been retooled to fit this version's themes. He is not alone, either: instead of the original's girlfriend accomplice, Teddy teams up with a neurodivergent cousin, which changes the dynamic from romantic complicity to a messier, familial loyalty.

Law enforcement gets streamlined, too. The original bounces among multiple investigators; Bugonia boils that down to one sheriff on a redemption arc, which tightens the pursuit and keeps the spotlight on the central quartet.

Heads up on the endings, because this is where the movies split hard. In Save the Green Planet, Byeong-gu is killed. In Bugonia, Teddy takes his own life. And while both stories conclude with humanity getting wiped out (told you there were spoilers), Bugonia adds a coda where Earth rebounds and nature takes the wheel. It is bleak and oddly hopeful at the same time, which is very Lanthimos.

So why remake Save the Green Planet now?

This one started on the Korean side. Jerry Ko, who runs the film division at CJ ENM, set out to bring Save the Green Planet to a wider audience. He reached out to Ari Aster, and from there the team grew to include producer Lars Knudsen, writer Will Tracy, and, eventually, Yorgos Lanthimos. That is a very particular blend of sensibilities, and you can feel it on screen.

"We started the project with the intention of reviving director Jang's sense of imagination, which was ahead of its time and not fully appreciated 20 years ago. The film developed into a bigger movie than we initially thought. By getting people on our side who understood the film's potential, we were able to create buzz."

Translation: the original was brilliant but niche in 2003; the world (and the marketplace) might finally be ready to hear what it was saying. Bugonia does not just re-stage the plot in English; it reframes the mood, the character alignments, and the final message so the thing lands with 2025 audiences without sanding off the weirdness.

Does it eclipse the cult classic or just sit beside it? That is going to depend on your taste for Lanthimos-brand bleak whimsy. Either way, it is a sharp, unnerving companion piece, and it is in US theaters now.