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Événement
PULGASARI
PULGASARI
aka Bulgasari
Dir. Sang-ok Shin, 1985
North Korea, 95 min.
In Korean with English subtitles
Over the span of 20 years, Sang-ok Shin sometimes called the Orson Wells of South Korea made upwards of 60 films but all that changed in 1978 when the studio closed. Things would go from bad to worse when in what should be an unbelievable turn of events, Shin and his wife (actress Choi Eun-Hee) were kidnapped by Kim Jong-il. Kims intent was to have Shin create films showcasing the power and might of the Korea Workers Party for all the world to see, with Choi Eun-Hee as their star. Before their escape to Vienna in 1986, and after years in prison camps, they would make 7 films PULGASARI being a crown jewel among them.
While seemingly an obvious Godzilla rip-off, the film is about an evil king in feudal Korea who learns of a coming peasant rebellion. The king gathers all the metal he can find farming tools, cooking pots, etc to make into weapons to squash the small army. A dying blacksmith uses the last of his strength to create a monster made of rice Pulgasari. When his daughters blood hits it, the monster comes to life and traverses the countryside, eating iron as monsters are wont to do.
Not seen outside of Korea for over a decade after its release, the film has gained a cult following for its special effects with Kenpachiro Satsuma who was Godzilla for over a decade in the Pulgasari costume!
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As a gesture of goodwill towards our new Axis of Evil partners, Spectacle will be screening a handful of works from North Koreas towering cinema canon.
North Koreas late Kim Jong-Il was, by all accounts, a legendary cinephile who aimed to surpass the technical and artistic standards of Moscow. The films produced under his leadership engage directly with the concept of juche, a particularly North Korean form of Marxism-Leninism generally revolving around the idea of total, homegrown self-reliance; in the senior Kim Il Sungs words: having the attitude of master toward revolution and construction in ones own countryusing your own brains, believing your own strength and displaying the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance, and thus solving your own problems for yourself on your own responsibility under all circumstances.
Initially working as department director of propaganda and agitation, the young Kim Jong Il instituted wide-sweeping reforms in the North Korean film industry, mandating that artists avoid both art-for-arts sake on one extreme and stiff, dogmatic films that neglect form and artistry on the other. He then actively encouraged people to emulate the heroes from films: Day after day, leading characters in the works of art become real in each factory and each workshop, he wrote.
Being at once proudly insular and aspiring to the artistic achievements of great Russian filmmakers and the magic of Hollywood, North Korean film is singularly baffling, enrapturing, inspiring and unsettling.
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AdresseSPECTACLE THEATER (Afficher)
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