10 Most Fascinating Films Produced By Brutal Governments
3. Pulgasari
Kaiju films, the Japanese monster movies featuring men in rubber suits playing city destroying monsters, have received new attention and appreciation recently thanks to blockbusters Pacific Rim and last year’s Godzilla. However what fewer people are liken to have seen is Kim Jong-Il’s Kaiju film.
Yes the late ‘Dear Leader’ of North Korea’s terrifying totalitarian dictatorship made his own Godzilla and with a kidnapped director no less. Shin Sang-ok was known as the ‘Prince of Korean Cinema’, often being compared to landmark Western directors like Steven Spielberg. He had his own production company and produced some of South Korea’s most acclaimed films of all time.
In 1978 Shin was kidnapped by the North Korean government and imprisoned in the country, along with his actress ex-wife, and was forced to make films for the amusement and propaganda ends of dictator Kim Jong-Il. Probably the most well-known of these is 1985’s Pulgasari, a kaiju film in the vein of Godzilla.
While Godzilla explored the effect that nuclear weapons had on the Japanese psyche, Pulgasari was a giant monster movie held together by Communist propaganda.
The movie’s monster is made by a hard working blacksmith and the creature assists oppressed peasants in their battle against a brutal monarch. Shortly after the film was made Shin escaped Korea and the clutches of Kim Jong-Il.