Pulgasari
Director: Shin Sang-ok
Year: 1985
Rating: 6.0
Country:
North Korea
About the last thing I expected
was for this North Korean Kaiju film to be any good, but it was quite entertaining
in a big clunky way. It is sort of Godzilla teaming up with Spartacus to
defeat tyranny. Not something you would think Kim Jong II would be in favor
of. The film had help. It was a co-production with Toho from Japan and the
guy in the rubber suit was none other than Kenpachiro Satsuma who was in
the Godzilla suit for a number of films. On top of that the director was
Shin Sang-ok who North Korea had kidnapped a few years before to make movies
for Kim. Kim was by all accounts a huge film buff and had an enormous library
of prints from all over the world. Someone should archive that collection.
Any volunteers? Not sure if the new Boss is the same as the old Boss or prefers
watching people get executed with canons to the head. Maybe we could trade
food for prints. Kim also was fond of the Godzilla films and like any dictator
geek wanted a Kaiju to call his own. Pulgasari is a folk-tale and is
the basis of the film.
The nice thing about having a dictator behind
your film is that you get all the extras you need - from the army - thousands
of them in fact. The film also gets to use some historical sites as sets.
It starts off small and rather boring but gets bigger and bigger as does
Pulgasari. By the end, it is practically epic in nature with large battle
scenes. It takes place in medieval Korea during the Goryeo period and the
King is a bastard. He is gathering all the iron from the farmers to make
weapons leaving them nothing to farm with. A small group of bandits headed
by In-dae (Ham Kisop) tries to stop them and he ends up in prison for his
trouble - and soon the blacksmith does as well. He is In-dae's uncle and
the father of Ami (Chang Sonhui), the village sweetie. The kids are
in love. All pretty slow so far - but it gets better. I almost ducked out
at this point but am glad I stuck around.
The father in jail is starving but Ami is
able to get a rice ball to him - but instead of eating it - he carves a small
statue of Pulgasari and prays to it. After he dies, Ami gets the rice ball
and fortunately did not eat it. She accidentally pricks her finger and the
blood lands on Pulgasari - bringing it to life - this is how the myth goes
- and it is a cute little guy - using stop-motion at this point I think.
The little guy has an appetite - for iron and eats everything that is iron.
And gets a little bigger with each bite. Soon Pulgasari is huge and made
of iron and he joins the resistance led by Spartacus, I mean In-dae who has
escaped. Pulgasari resembles a combination of a minotaur and a Thai Yaksha.
It gets quite fun as they take on the government's troops guerilla style.
Or should I say Gangnam Style. The King sends his best general against the
revolt but with Pulgasari on their side they are undefeatable. So, they build
a huge hole to trap him, hire some female exorcists to suck the blacksmith's
spirit out of him and build canons! But damn it is Pulgasari who eats canons
for breakfast. The ending isn't what you expect - a nice surprise. Shin Sang-ok
was to escape soon after the film was finished and the film was banned! It
was released on VHS in 1995 and later played theaters in Japan where it was
a hit.
