Monsters come in all shapes and sizes. Monsters hide in plain sight and mark the coming of sudden death. From the largest to the smallest, monsters always find a way to muck up the natural order of the world. In The Beast (1975), or the French La Bête, the sexual urges humans and animals possess are explored through the mythological tale of the Beast of Gévaudan. The Iron Giant (1999) shares how mankind can become the architects of their own destruction or future. Colossal (2016) deals with how addiction and abuse turn us and others into monsters; how both can be used as a coping mechanism for justified and unjustified survival and self-defense.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
They serve as an outward metaphor of the manifestations — malice, greed, and others — that condemn and corrupt our better nature. Ever since Godzilla warned us of the dangers of nuclear warfare, monsters have been useful cautionary tales as well as entertaining monster mashes. One monster mash began with malevolence to fructify a despot only to end in ironic justice. A kaiju film by the name of Pulgasari (1985).
Lost Film, Found Director
Korean Film Studio
North Korea had isolated itself after the Korean War with South Korea, which lasted from 1950 until 1953. Both Koreans brought mass killings and destruction to the whole of Korea’s major cities. The “military first” socialist country of North Korea, however, tortured and starved their prisoners of war. An armistice was reached creating the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and separating North and South Korea.
The frozen conflict for government legitimacy left Koreans at a loss for a country. South Korea flourished economically after the war and became one of the world’s leading developed countries. North Korea remained an underdeveloped country under the dictatorship of Kim Il-sung. His son, Kim Jong-il would supersede him as the second supreme leader, but not before proving his loyalty and spreading loyalty to the country by making films.
id=“firstHeading”>Shin Sang-ok was a South Korean director, affectionately known as “The Prince of South Korean Cinema,” who was married to South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee. Both were renowned in South Korea for their films throughout the 1960s. In 1978, North Korean intelligence kidnapped Shin and Choi, forcing them into a constrictive creative contract under Kim Jong-il’s direction. They were tasked with turning South Korea’s first kaiju science fiction film and lost film, Bulgasari (1962) into a North Korean anticapitalist propaganda film.
Attack of the Propaganda
That same year, Kim Jong-il became the cultural arts director of the Motion Picture and Arts Division for the Propaganda and Agitation Department. He abducted two of South Korea’s stars, including staff from Toho Studios, the team responsible for creating Godzilla, to establish North Korea’s film industry. Choi was promised a directorial role as well as being an instructor for a performance academy in Hong Kong, where she had lived. Under the guise of these propositions, Choi was taken on a tour of North Korea, learned about the Kim dynasty, and attended performing arts shows with Kim Jong-il, who held onto every word Choi would share about films.
Six months later, Shin was captured after learning of Choi’s disappearance and searching for her in Hong Kong. At the time, he divorced Choi and his film license for his production company, Shin Films or Shin Studios was revoked, so he could not make films as he traveled the world. The cinematic couple were imprisoned for five years until their reunion in 1983 at a party hosted by Kim Jong-il. In so doing, the director and actress were remarried and coerced into making North Korean films for almost a decade.
Liberty’s Bell Rings True
Bulgasari (meaning “impossible to kill”) is a Korean mythological monster who feeds on metal and attacks the oppressors of its oppressed summoners. Shin covertly, inadvertently, and wisely used the beast as a twofold metaphor. The beast represents the hidden rebellious nature of a disenfranchised people who take back their country from their enemy. The beast also represents the gluttonous North Korean rulers and the people who continue to give in to his commands and appease his hunger. The duality of man is evident in this picture, despite the jingoistic tone and leaning.
Sacrifice for a cause, or sacrifice of the self for your country, is a prevalent theme shown in the film’s bittersweet end. After the evil king is defeated, his daughter, who summoned the monster with her own blood, decides to hide inside a bell which Pulgasari devours. The bloodline came from a paradoxical place: part-oppressor (the king) and part-oppressed (the rebel daughter). In doing so, Pulgasari turns to stone, freeing the people from tyranny once more.
Shin and Choi found their own bell and sought political asylum in the United States embassy in 1986. They were on a film festival tour in Vienna, Austria, where Kim Jong-il was after funding for a film about Genghis Khan. Shin found work in Hollywood before returning to South Korea; before his death in 2004, he had plans for a Genghis Khan musical! Pulgasari was banned in North Korea until 2000, when it was released in South Korea and bombed at the box office.
Pulgasari is both a story about a human rights violation and human nature, the wayside manipulation that turns men into monsters, and Pulgasari is both a human rights violation and a story of collected and compromised human nature. Unfortunately and effectively, Pulgasari showcases the manipulation that turns men into monsters alongside the modesty and mortality that turns monsters into men.
