Ghost of a flea: Pulgasari

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May 03, 2006

Pulgasari

Chong Gon Jo's only known film credit is as director of a famous North Korean Godzilla knock-off, Pulgasari. The film was not a resounding success in artistic, technical or box-office terms. Pulgasari is instead notorious for the circumstances of its production and the fact it was banned for ten years by executive producer Kim Jong Il.

The movie itself is a fascinating combination of standard monster flick and historial tale of the power of the people. The problematic bit is the fact that, due to North Korea's non-existent resources and infrastructure, the film is incredibly, hilariously poorly executed. That's not to say that they didn't try really hard-- Ken Satsuma, the original actor who played Godzilla, was hired to wear the rubber suit of the monster. Not only that, two of the most popular young actors in South Korea at the time were asked to play the leads. They declined, so they got kidnapped and had to play the leads anyway.

Yes, you heard me right. They were kidnapped so they could be in this movie. In fact, so was director Chong Gon Jo. This eventually led to why Pulgasari was banned for so long-- Kim Jong Il was satisfied with how the movie came out initially, but he ended up disowning and banning the film after Chong Gon Jo exercised his fundamental North Korean right of juche and high-tailed it to the USA.

I belive Anime Jump! has Chong Gon Jo confused with Shin San-Ok, variously credited as the film's co-director or producer. Shin San-Ok was a noted South Korean director kidnapped in Hong Kong. He was there looking for his ex-wife, previously kidnapped as part of Kim Jong Il's drive to liven up North Korea's film industry. Several films resulted including the partially completed Pulgasari. Flea-readers may not be astonished to learn the two fled the country at their first opportunity. I assume Chong Gon Jo was a ringer drafted in to complete the project. Though it is also possible Chong Gon Jo is the juche equivalent of Alan Smithee.

There is something undeniably hilarious about all of this. I expect the laughter comes by preference to facing the fact North Korea is run as a hallucinatory nightmare. Shin San-Ok has died aged 79.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at May 3, 2006 01:12 PM

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