Kim Jong Un has North Korea in the news again for all the wrong reasons. He’s continuing his insane and despotic family’s policies like starving his own people, constantly threatening nuclear activity against other nations, having his secret police abduct countless people in the middle of the night and running a barbaric prison system.
So here’s a helping of my review of the lone venture into the area of filmmaking that Kim Jong Un’s equally crazed father Kim Jong Il engaged in. Of course I’m talking about Pulgasari, the only kaiju movie produced by a man who combined the insanity of Idi Amin with the paranoia of Josef Stalin and the cinematic mastery of Ed Wood.
PULGASARI (1985) – Category: Bad enough and with a classically weird premise but not fun-bad enough for my highest rating North Korea’s thoroughly deranged dictator Kim Jong Il was responsible for this film and even gives himself a producer’s credit. It’s the least he could do for himself after having his underlings literally KIDNAP SOME FILMMAKERS from South Korea and forcing them to take part in this bizarre film venture. If you doubt me just use a search engine to find out about the making of this movie. He even made those unfortunate people rot in one of his prisons for four years before he finally got around to setting them to the task he had kidnapped them for in the first place.
It was all part of Krazy Kim’s desire to initiate North Korea’s entry into the 
kaiju monster film market. (Their previous attempt decades earlier resulted in the equally laughable film Yongary, Monster From The Deep ) The story of the kidnapping and the filmmakers’ subsequent escape would have made a much better movie than this monster flick.
Pulgasari (No, Dennis Rodman, not Pao Gasol, Pulgasari. NBA fans will get it) is the title monster in Kim Jong Il’s attempt to imitate Godzilla and Gamera and other Japanese monsters. Since the story is Continue reading
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