Monday, December 19, 2011

Kim Jong-Il's Monster Movie Pulgasari!

Cinephile, communist, ladies man, and Hennessy drinker Kim Jong-ill has passed on. The leader for years of North Korea has passed. The first book I released had Kim Jong-Il, Saddam Hussein, and Michael Jackson on the cover. All three of them are dead and the U.S. war in Iraq is over. The idea was actually that I had this very luddite understanding of the world and that I could express this luddite understanding by throwing people who'd gone insane in the eye of electronic media. I don't like the book. I did read a lot of biographical data about Kim Jong-Il. Wow, was he a freak! I was deeply depressed when I wrote Electric Beauty and the Beast. I recall that one of the few things that really was break from that depression was reading up on Kim Jong-Il. He had his favorite South Korean director and the director's wife his favorite film star kidnapped to make a monster movie. Pulgasari. Years later, I found the film on-line, but by then I had moved onto reviewing cult films. In Medieval North Korea the local village has a sever problem with the Emperor’s oppressive forces, who want their iron tools used for farming to make into weapons. When the village blacksmith is captured he creates a small metal statue out of a clump of rice, a feet I must say I was very impressed by. When his daughter accidentally pricks her finger and blood is dropped the statue turns into an adorable metal creature that eats iron, then gets bigger and bigger by eating more iron. He becomes a Godzilla sized monster that assists the proletariat revolt, (it was made in North Korea) in destroying the forces of the emperor, but when his unstoppable appetite for iron becomes a threat to the villagers and the good workers of the village, Pulgasari makes the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good of the people, in a very touching final sequence, Pulgasari becoming kind of a communist mascot for the North Korean people. This is actually a very fun and easy film to watch, I strongly recommend it. The little Pulgasari is cute and fun and would make an excellent pet. When it jumps out and starts taking a bite out of swords, LOL! The communist message of unity and sacrifice for the greater good of the worker’s revolution makes this film distinct from other Asian monster movies. The soundtrack is a very cool communist 80s synthesized sound, likely to remind people of the Legendary Pink Dots. Kim Jong-Il actually managed to produce a fun little film on this one, even if he had to employ kidnapping as the means to do so. It should be of note that death by starvation, a daily reality in the socialist utopia of North Korea, features prominently as a theme in this film. I want to get a pet baby Pulgasari. The film has of course re-incarnated on YouTube. Here's an excerpt:

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