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Pulgasari

  • 1985
  • 1h 35m
IMDb RATING
5.2/10
1.5K
YOUR RATING
Pulgasari (1985)
KaijuActionDramaFantasySci-Fi

In feudal Korea, a group of starving villagers grow weary of the orders handed down to them by their controlling king and set out to use a deadly monster under their control to push his armi... Read allIn feudal Korea, a group of starving villagers grow weary of the orders handed down to them by their controlling king and set out to use a deadly monster under their control to push his armies back.In feudal Korea, a group of starving villagers grow weary of the orders handed down to them by their controlling king and set out to use a deadly monster under their control to push his armies back.

  • Director
    • Shin Sang-ok
  • Writer
    • Se Ryun Kim
  • Stars
    • Son Hui Chang
    • Ham Gi Sop
    • Jong-uk Ri
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    5.2/10
    1.5K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Shin Sang-ok
    • Writer
      • Se Ryun Kim
    • Stars
      • Son Hui Chang
      • Ham Gi Sop
      • Jong-uk Ri
    • 20User reviews
    • 45Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Photos71

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    Top cast14

    Edit
    Son Hui Chang
    • Ami
    Ham Gi Sop
    • Inde
    Jong-uk Ri
    • Ana
    Gwon Ri
    • Takse (Ami's Father)
    Gyong-ae Yu
    • Inde's Mother
    Hye-chol Ro
    • Inde's Brother
    Sang-hun Tae
    • Rebel Forces
    Gi-chon Kim
    • Rebel Forces
    In-chol Ri
    • Rebel Forces
    Riyonun Ri
    • General Fuan
    Yong-hok Pak
    • The King
    Pong-ilk Pak
    • The Governor
    Kenpachirô Satsuma
    Kenpachirô Satsuma
    • Pulgasary (suit actor)
    'Little Man' Machan
    • Baby Pulgasari
    • Director
      • Shin Sang-ok
    • Writer
      • Se Ryun Kim
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews20

    5.21.4K
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    Featured reviews

    shark-43

    Incredible BackStory - Fun Monster Movie

    The backstory to this movie is pretty darn incredible - made in North Korea by the country's dictator - the director and two lead performers were actually kidnapped from S. Korea after they refused to work on this movie with the dictator. Seriously - not kidding. As for the movie itself - it is pretty good in many ways. The story itself works as an old village myth - an iron eating monster comes to life to save poor farmers and villagers from a cruel warlord. The effects are cheesy and silly but some of the battle sequences are impressive for no other reasons then you can tell there are literally thousands of people fighting in these scenes. After all the CGI effects of recent time - it was refreshing and stunning to see so many actual people being used in a big battle. Then again, they probably didn't have much choice. I guess if the dictator of a country tells you to be in his movie, you are in the movie!!
    6Atavisten

    Rubber suit demolition Chosen style

    As the workers have a hard time rebelling against the oppressive (pre colonized) Chosen regime they get unexpected help from the gods. Bulgasari awakens to life from a figure of clay and rice with the drop of blood from Ami and is thereby under her authority. This secret weapon was exactly what they needed in order to kill the king, but it grows out of control. Whether this monster represents capitalism or not is anyones guess, I didn't notice anything that pointed towards that conclusion in the movie, but there's always the juche discourse to look it in the light of. After all Kim Jong-il is listed as a producer. With that in mind, I got a little bit anxious by the ending.

    As a movie it is OK. The script is very simple and the characters are, like the weapons, like cardboard cutouts. Some of the berserker smashing the temples (cultural revolution style?) however, were quite impressive. All the shouting and wailing were not. I wonder if there's a movie were the title of it is repeated more often than in this.
    4Uriah43

    Doesn't Translate As Well to World-Wide Audiences

    Filmed in 1985 by a director (Sang OK Shin) who had been kidnapped by North Korea, this movie is about a monster who is created by a blacksmith just prior to his death to help his village against an evil king. Now from what I understand Kim Jong Il (the eventual leader of North Korea) was an avid movie buff and wanted Sang OK Shin to produce a film along the lines of "Godzilla". This movie is the final product. Unfortunately, this movie doesn't translate as well to world-wide audiences as its famous predecessor did. That's not to say that this movie is necessarily bad but it clearly had some weaknesses. For starters, the special effects were quite poor and the movie had some scenes which could have definitely been trimmed here and there. Along with that the movie I saw was filmed in Korean but had English subtitles. I only mention this because this is a film that is probably best suited for young children and subtitles simply won't suffice for that particular audience. Be that as it may I rate the movie as slightly below average.
    5ericstevenson

    Behold, the evils of dictatorship!

    A lot of people here might not be familiar with one of my favorite pages on the entire Internet, Wikipedia's list of unusual articles. It's just a collection of weird stuff that this very movie happened to be featured on. I actually first heard about this film when watching a segment with Lewis Black on "The Daily Show". It's very hard to talk about this film at all without explaining its backstory. It was actually made when Kim Jong-Il kidnapped a movie director. Yep, this guy was actually a fan of movies and probably would have himself made a good Bond villain in real life. For a propaganda film, this didn't really have that much that was offensive in it.

    It's still a pretty dumb movie as it features a toy monster that comes alive when blood gets on it. The monster grows when eating iron. It's very silly, but it's really no dumber than most of the films in the Gamera series. North Korea is known for knockoff products, but this really wasn't one. It seems like every country has done a kaiju movie. Pulgasari is actually a mythical figure so it's no Godzilla ripoff. The colors in this film are just plain gaudy. Some of the action scenes really aren't that bad. It is very hard to enjoy something that was forced. Imagine if people could kidnap those who worked on their favorite franchises like "Pokémon" or "Doctor Who". George Lucas would be cliché. It's still a shame the Kim family has yet to be put to justice. Oh, and this is all the fault of religion, according to Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher. Yeah, it's hard not to get political when talking about this. **
    giammarcoken

    A movie from behind the DMZ!

    Since I began living in South Korea several years ago, I have always been curious about what life and art would be like in the isolated North. The educational channel in South Korea (EBS) has a weekly show that gives us clips of North Korean newscasts, movies, music, dramas and animation.

    When South Korean president, Kim Dae-jung visited North Korea last year in the first step toward normalizing relations and possible (albeit future) unification, we learned that the North Korean supreme leader is something of a movie fanatic. He has been secretly receiving western movies and monitoring South Korean tv dramas. It is not surprising to learn that he apparently ordered Pulgasari be made. Like every other artform from the North it can only be broadcast or shown if it matches the philosophy of the state. Pulgasari is a metaphor. The evil king represents the feudal government of the Chosun Dynasty which ended at the beginning of the 1900's. The monster, Pulgasari represents capitalism. It arrives apparently to help the people, but soon grows out of control. The heroes in the movie are the peasantry, the common people who must fix everything that people with power have wrought.

    Nobody can claim that Pulgasari is state-of-the-art. Even by rubber monster standards, this movies special effects are poor. It does help to consider that the budget for this movie was probably around what we spend on lunch in a year. But for me, the true fascination of a movie like this is the chance to see how another culture, living under a completely different philosophy, sees the world.

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    Related interests

    Haruo Nakajima in Godzilla (1954)
    Kaiju
    Bruce Willis in Die Hard (1988)
    Action
    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama
    Elijah Wood in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
    Fantasy
    James Earl Jones and David Prowse in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
    Sci-Fi

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Although the film is a North Korean production, director Shin Sang-ok is South Korean. North Korean dictator Jong-Il Kim was a huge fan of Shin's. At the time this film was made, North and South Korea were at war (which eventually ended in 2018 thanks to the Panmunjom Declaration). Thus, Kim had him kidnapped. Shin eventually escaped back to South Korea, but not before he had been forced to make this movie for the erratic North Korean leader.
    • Connections
      Featured in Great Man and Cinema (2009)

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    FAQ13

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • 1985 (North Korea)
    • Countries of origin
      • North Korea
      • Japan
      • China
    • Official sites
      • Japanese distributor for Pulgasari (Japanese text only)
      • Official South Korean Homepage
    • Language
      • Korean
    • Also known as
      • Pulgasar!
    • Production companies
      • Korean Film Studio
      • Shin Film Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 35m(95 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.33 : 1

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