Pulgasari (1985)
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Pulgasari Movie Review
Pulgasari is a 1985 North Korean fantasy action kaiju film directed by Shin Sang-ok and starring Chang Son Hui. It’s a somewhat silly, but still surprisingly solid, fun monster flick.
In feudal Korea, the evil king becomes aware that there is a peasant rebellion being planned in the country. He steals all the iron farming tools and cooking pots from the people so that he may make weapons to fend off the peasant army. After he returns the property to the people, an old blacksmith is imprisoned and starved to death. His last creation is a tiny figurine of a monster – Pulgasari, a Godzilla-like creature that eats iron. The blood of his daughter brings the creature to life, and fights with the poor, starving peasants to overthrow the corrupt monarchy.
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There is a lot to talk about here, but let’s first state the most interesting thing about this movie, which isn’t the film itself, but the backstory behind its creation. You see, Shin Sang-ok was a South Korean director and he was actually kidnapped along with his wife actress and brought to North Korea to make a bunch of kaiju movies for Kim Jong-il.
Yes, this truly happened. This story so fascinating and crazy that it genuinely deserves its very own movie treatment. Not only that, but the team fooled Toho into coming to North Korea to work on the VFX for the creature. They’d thought that they were going to China, but they were tricked. All of this resulted not just in a crazy story unlike no other, but also in a film that is much more advanced than it would have been otherwise having in mind that the South Korean and Japanese team worked on it as well.
The final product is very entertaining, there is no denying its fun factor. The movie’s message was obviously communist in nature as the peasants rebel against the tyrannical monarchy, but the film is otherwise surprisingly apolitical with the exception of the hilarious inclusion of a horrible despotic leader as the main antagonist. He clearly stood for Kim Jong-il himself and it is so funny that he did not realize that back in the day.
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The story overall is fine. We’ve seen stories like this before, so it’s far from original, but at least it’s serviceable in the context of the fantasy kaiju action. I also really liked the blacksmith’s daughter character. She was awesome as this very proactive, inspirational figure who eventually sacrificed herself to save her people. That ending was surprisingly emotional and unexpectedly dark.
Let’s talk about the kaiju elements. I actually found the titular creature pretty well designed. Clearly, this design was influenced by ‘Godzilla’ way too much as was the whole movie that lacked originality throughout, but at least the figurine aspect was unique to this flick and the creature growing in size rapidly and eating iron was also quite interesting.
With all that said and done, you’d expect that Pulgasari would have better action scenes. They are fine, but the overall production design and action execution should have been better. The direction and the acting are just okay while the movie’s pacing was also not all that great with the mid section being weaker than the rest. The silliness and childishness of some scenes was also too much for me.
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