Classic Movies Live Season 7, Episode 3 – Bugonia

Classic Movies Live Season 7, Episode 3 – Bugonia

From Classic Movies Live! by Heatwave Radio

February 11, 2026

About this episode

The episode discusses the thematic differences and similarities between the films Bugonia and Save the Green Planet.

This week we're talking about a story that was made into a movie, only to be re-made later! I'm not sure what you'd call an episode like that, but here we call it Classic Movies Live! Bugonia is the latest collaboration between Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone, remaking the 2003 South Korean classic Save the Green Planet by Jang Joon-hwan. In both films, a powerful pharmaceutical CEO (Emma Stone/Baek Yoon-sik) is kidnapped by a down-on-his-luck man (Jesse Plemons/Shin Ha-kyun) who is convinced the CEO is an alien from the Andromeda galaxy, bent on destroying humanity. Both films are comic yet tense hostage thrillers, and cutting commentaries on society in their respective release eras. What's most interesting though, is that despite being quite similar on the page -- Bugonia even taking some lines from Save the Green Planet verbatim -- the two are, thematically, quite different! In this episode, following in the footsteps of previous episodes like Classic Movies Live – Season 4, Episode 15: Do Do-Over: The Hidden Fortress/Star Wars and CML Classics – Episode 33: Infernal Affairs, Pierre and Jeff break down both Bugonia and Save the Green Planet!

People in this episode

Hosts: Pierre, Jeff

Topics covered

  • film analysis
  • remakes
  • hostage thrillers
  • societal commentary
  • comparative cinema

Keywords

  • Bugonia
  • Save the Green Planet
  • Yorgos Lanthimos
  • Emma Stone
  • remake
  • hostage thriller
  • film analysis

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Bugonia, Save the Green Planet

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