Солтүстік Кореяның "Пульгасари" фильмі: Аңыз бен саясат арасындағы қаһарман

the North Korean film
While never officially released in most parts of the world, the film is available online with countries like the United States considering the movie as part of the public domain.

In feudal Korea, during the Goryeo Dynasty, a king controls the land with an iron fist, subjecting the peasantry to misery and starvation. An old blacksmith who was sent to prison for defending his people creates a tiny figurine of a monster by making a doll of rice and before dying asks the gods of earth and sky to make his creation a living creature that protects the rebels and the oppressed. When the figurine comes into contact with the blood of the blacksmith's daughter, the creature springs to life, becoming a giant metal eating monster whom the blacksmith's daughter names Pulgasari, which is the name of the mythical monster her father used to mention as an eater of iron and steel. The original story was set in the city of Songdo (now Kaesong, North Korea).

The film was a loose remake of a lost 1962 film directed by Kim Myeong je, which is believed to be the first Korean kaiju film, predating Yongary, Monster from the Deep and Space Monster Wangmagwi by five years. Kim Jong Il was a lifelong admirer of the director, as well as Godzilla and other kaiju films. He kidnapped the former director Shin Sang ok and his wife, famous actress Choi Eun hee, with the specific purpose of making fantasy/propaganda films for the North Korean government. Kim also produced Pulgasari (through Korean Film Studio) and all the films that Shin made before he and Choi managed to escape from their minders while on a festival tour in Austria. Specifically, the film was inspired by The Return of Godzilla. The staff from Japan's Toho Studios, the creators of Godzilla, participated in creating the film's special effects. They were tricked into coming as they thought they were filming in China. Jonathan Ross stated that the film was intended by the North Korean government to be a propaganda metaphor for the effects of unchecked capitalism and the power of the collective. The film's special effects were done by Duk Ho Kim, supervised by Teruyoshi Nakano.

Kenpachiro Satsuma was quoted as saying he preferred Pulgasari to TriStar's Godzilla. There has been some speculation that the director Shin Sang ok included a hidden message of his own in the film; the monster of the movie was to be interpreted as both a metaphor for Kim Il Sung betraying a people's revolution for his own purposes and as a plea to the North Korean people to rise up against the Kim regime, represented by Pulgasari demanding his subjects fed him more and more iron farming equipment even after the former regime has been defeated, leading to the workers turning against and ultimately defeating their former savior. After finding out that his credit was removed from the movie, Shin Sang ok wrote a remake called The Adventures of Galgameth in 1996. Pulgasari became the first North Korean film to be released in South Korean theaters in 2000. Six years later in 2006, Pulgasari made its New York debut at the end of Columbia University Japanese culture center's year long "Godzilla festival." Pulgasari was made in 1985, the same year that Shin's North Korean films Salt and The Tale of Shim Chong were released. It was the last film directed by Shin before he and Choi escaped to the United States.