‘Pulgasari’: The strangest experiment in North Korean cinema
10 min readMay 9, 2020
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…
