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The Weird Tale of 'Pulgasari'
Mark takes a look at the fantasy film Pulgasari; featuring a beast
which was a North Korean giant monster who ate iron and grew to hundreds
of feet high. It's director was kidnapped from South Korea, taken
to North Korea, imprisoned for four years with no explanation, and
then forced to make the only Marxist monster movie.
Except for Pulgasari. This beast is a North Korean giant monster who eats iron and grows to hundreds of feet high. Pulgasari actually is important in international news. And I am not talking about entertainment news. The whole Pulgasari incident shows just how weird politics in Korea really is. The details of the story, mostly rumor until now, were just released early in April. Kim Jong-il, dictator of North Korea, produced the film. It was directed by Shin Sang-ok, formerly South Korea's premiere director. Shin was kidnapped from South Korea, taken to North Korea, imprisoned for four years with no explanation, and then forced to make a Marxist monster movie, with the aforementioned Pulgasari. At this point you probably think I am kidding. No. Really. Shin really was kidnapped so that he could be forced to make a bad monster movie for Kim Jong-il. The story appeared in the Manchester Guardian, taken from Shin's recently published memoirs. (See the Guardian story at .) Shin Sang-ok really was one of South Korea's great filmmakers. His wife was Choi Eun-hee, a popular actress. In 1978 Shin Sang- ok fell from grace with the South Korean government and was forbidden to make any more movies. Meanwhile in North Korea dictator-to-be Kim Jong-il, son of the then-dictator Kim Il-sung, decided to try to show the world the power of North Korean cinema. He had his own ideas how to make convincing propaganda films and he wanted to build a film industry around Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee. Shin first noticed something was wrong on a trip to Hong Kong with his wife when Choi went to a meeting to talk about an upcoming film role and then never returned. Shortly after that when he was going to dinner one night someone pulled a sack over his head. There was something inside the sack that knocked him out when he breathed it. When he woke up he had been smuggled over the border into North Korea. Shin says in his memoir that he tried to escape but was caught and thrown into a prison camp for four years. While in the camp he as fed nothing but grass, rice, and salt. Meanwhile he was forced to undergo Marxist brainwashing. During this period he had no idea what all this was being done to him. He assumed his wife was dead all this time. In 1983, again with no apparent reason, the imprisonment was ended. Shin was treated like a VIP and was taken to a reception with Kim Jong-il and with his kidnapped wife. Shin expected an explanation but instead heard Kim complain to him about how disappointing and bad the filmmakers were in North Korea. Kim had written his own book on cinema that helpfully explained how films should be made. But North Korean filmmakers had not followed his guidelines. Then Kim heard that the great filmmaker Shin was forbidden to make films in his own country. Shin and North Korea seemed like a perfect match to Kim and so he arranged that Shin and his wife would be "brought" to North Korea, educated in Marxism, and then would make films for the government. As for the fact that they were not to be given a choice in the matter, well nobody is given a choice in North Korea, why should the Shin and his wife object that they were assigned to a task? Particularly since Shin was to be given a salary of $3,000,000 a year and lived in luxury. Shin made several films in North Korea, but the best known is PULGASARI. (The IMDB does not know where the film is available and to be honest I don't remember where I got my copy. But I have it on VHS from a company aptly called Rubbersuit Pictures.) When I bought it I think I knew it had been directed under duress and that was the main reason I was interested to see it.) The story is set in the 1300s. About the only thing really remarkable about the film is the use of multitudes of people from the North Korean army. Shin was not given a lot of resources, but he was given the army. The creature starts about two inches high and grows to something like a hundred feet on a diet of pure iron. The article says his design owes a lot to Godzilla, but he looks more like a huge bipedal water buffalo with fierce fangs and spurs on his shoulders. In the film, an artist who made Pulgasari about two inches tall forms the creature from rice. But the little nipper likes to chew on iron weapons and farm implements. On this diet he grows really big and fights for the people against the evil King. Kim Jong-il even managed to get Toho people to help with his film. Kenpachiro Satsuma who played the Smog monster in GODZILLA VS. THE SMOG MONSTER and later played Godzilla in the Toho films from 1984 to 1995 plays Pulgasari. Kim wanted to market his Marxist monster movie to the world and even sell plastic toy Pulgasaris much in the way that Godzilla toys are marketed. Sadly, the film did not appeal to people like a Godzilla film does. Kim will have to peddle his propaganda parable to his own people. The film really has value only as a curiosity. Kim Jong-il began to believe that Shin was actually loyal to North Korea. He allowed Shin and his wife to go to business meetings in Vienna--under heavy guard, of course. Shin was supposedly trying to get a European release for his next film, but actually he arranged that the release would be for him and his wife. After help from a Japanese movie critic and a taxi chase, the Shin and his wife escaped to an American embassy. After ten years Kim Jong-il had PULGASARI released, but the film has generated little interest beyond curiosity. However as a curiosity, the story of its making is one of the strangest in cinema history. Mark Leeper (c) Mark R. Leeper 2004
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OTHER CONTENT - June 2004
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I
have always liked one line in the original Godzilla film GOJIRA
(here called GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS). One scientist has a
weapon that might kill the monster, but is hesitant to release this
new weapon on the world. A military man tells him, "Then you have
your fears, which may become reality, and you have Godzilla, which
is reality." I always wanted to make up a button that said, "Godzilla
is reality." Of course it would be facetious. The simple fact is that
giant monsters rarely show up in serious news. They seem to have little
to do with reality.
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