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‘Pulgasari’: The strangest experiment in North Korean cinema
In 1978, South Korean director Shin sang-ok was kidnapped by North Korean agents in Hong Kong. The order came directly from Kim Jong-il, the North’s future dictator and a well-known film buff.¹ Despairing at the state of his favourite child, the North Korean film industry, Kim hoped that foreign input could inject new energy into Northern cinema. The result was one of the most misunderstood products in cinematic history — a Godzilla-inspired monster film titled Pulgasari (1985).
Birthed by a curious mix of power-politics, idiosyncratic despotism, and the artistic vision of a kidnapped director, Pulgasari’s meaning has been hotly debated. Some see it as an anti-capitalist ‘propaganda film,’ while others believe it contains a subversive message about the oppression and brutality of the North Korean state. Both arguments miss the point: that Pulgasari is one of the least propagandized (and most entertaining) films ever made in the notoriously ideology-driven state.
So what exactly is Pulgasari, and how did this strange experiment come about?
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