Pulgasari (1985)

It's a known fact that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il is, among other things, a tremendous film fanatic. So much so that in 1978, he charged the DPRK intelligence services with kidnapping the critically-acclaimed South Korean director Shin Sang-ok so that he could create films especially for Kim. Thankfully, Shin was able to escape his captors while in Vienna on business and sought asylum in the United States, but not before he directed seven films in North Korea, the best-known of which is the Godzilla knock-off, Pulgasari. It won't surprise you to learn that this is essentially a propaganda vehicle for the Kim family (made, as it was, when Kim Il-sung was still in power), showing the struggle of the working masses, starved by a parasitic and tyrannical ruling elite and forced to use all of their limited resources to make weapons. Now, I know what you're thinking - "That sounds familiar... Almost like it could apply almost perfectly to the Kims..." - and you'd be right. As a piece of propaganda, this film is so perfectly tailored to denounce the evils and idiocies of the Kims that you could almost be forgiven for thinking that Kim Jong-il might have been a secret dissident in his younger days. But, alas, no. It's merely ineptitude. But now someone is here to save them; the enormous iron-eating monster Pulgasari, created by a dying blacksmith out of a ball of rice. Question: why in the world would he create a monster that eats a substance that he knows very well is scarce? But never mind, eventually Pulgasari destroys the evil rulers and wins the day for the proletariat. But his incredible appetite for iron means that he too must be destroyed for the people to have their true freedom. Again, sounds a touch like the Kims, "freeing" the people, who then realise that their supposed emancipator is, in fact, just another greedy menace to their survival. A consummate failure of propaganda, and just another in the long line of proofs that Kim Jong-il isn't just losing his grip on reality, he never had much in the first place. Special dishonour to Toho for assisting with the special effects, although Kenpachiro Satsuma (the man in the Godzilla suit from 1984 and 1995, and Pulgasari himself) gets a pass for noting that he found Pulgasari more entertaining that the American Godzilla remake.


I expect a midnight visit very soon...