Customer Reviews

Pulgasari [VHS]

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Okay, the existing comment completely misses the point of the movie. The film was made in NORTH KOREA under the direct supervision of Kim Jong Il, with part of the production team having been kidnapped at gunpoint from the South and forced to work on pain of death. Pulgasari, the iron-eating rubber-suit monster, is capitalism, who seems at first to side with the workers against the aristocracy but ultimately grows bigger and bigger and more exploitative, demanding more surplus value out of the proletariat... er, scrap iron out of the peasantry. And of course the dialectical class struggle turns to class warfare, and guess who wins. Actually a fairly good synopsis of the class struggle if you ask me.

OF COURSE it's an awful movie. It's even awful if you like the camp Godzilla-style blockbusters. Who cares? Any cheesy monster movie made by Kim Jong Il as North Korean propaganda is worth watching.

This interesting film puts the lie to the claim that North Korean films are silly propaganda. This is GREAT propaganda. A dying peasant breathes life into a tiny Godzilla image he fashions from his prison rice ration. Pulgasari is born to feed on metal objects that spur his growth -- and his appetite -- to giant proportions. Pulgasari represents the coming of industrial capitalism to backward, peasant Korea. At first, his impact is to free the peasants and artisans from the control of the feudal lords. Like a reptillian Robespierre, he leads the peasant masses in victorious battle against the aristocracy. But his appetite spins out of control and he demands more steel and iron than the peasants can hope to secure for him. The crisis is resolved when a hero defeats Pulgasari. The people, now aroused and organized, are freed from his insatiable demands.

godzilla + korean culture + great soryline = pulgasari

this movie is one of the best movies ever, a must see for everyone

Okay. We all know that Korea is not known for the quality of its films. FIrst, there was, YONGGARRY: Monster from the Deep, which is arguably the worst non-American ... of Godzilla ever made. The film Pulgasari is basically a redo of Daiei's 1966 film Daimajin (which is a film that I recommend) that stars a large bull-man-lizard monster that grows from (do not laugh) a rice doll made by a little girls dying father into an enormous monster by eating iron . Then, as in Daimajin, oppressors become a little too oppressive, Pulgasari destroys a village, oppressors are killed, that's basically the whole movie. The special efx were created by the same team that did the effects for Godzilla 1985 (Teroyushi Nakano, etc) who were obviously on a slightly lower budget for this film.

An actress disappeared while in Hong Kong. Her husband, a South Korean director and producer, much admired by Kim Jong-Il (or Jong-Il Kim, as he's credited aboveas being the producer), visits Hong Kong to try and find her. He wakes up wrapped in plastic on a ship bound for North Korea. Five years later, he's allowed to leave prison and be with his wife only after agreeing to make this film for KIM JONG-IL!!! Even when the film is done, he's not released from custody. He and his wife escaped years later. This is profiting from an international kidnapping. How can that be right? SHAME on Amazon and its vendor-partners for making this available for profit! The only way it can be made right is for Amazon and its vendor-partners to donate all proceeds from sales of this (grossly overpriced) movie to an international human rights nonprofit organization.