"Pulgasari": True Escapism (part 2)

Try to imagine all this. Your film studio was ruined. Your actress-wife divorced you. You both got separately kidnapped and then placed in North Korean prison for nearly five years. Then you receive a completely out-of-the-blue invitation to eat dinner with the future ruler of North Korea. He promises you a sizable financial offer to go back to making movies—or face execution. And then the man, who reportedly believes he can change the weather with his mind, asks that you remarry your ex-wife. That is where we last left off.

While at the dinner table for two hours, Kim Jong-il explained his cinema dilemma to his South Korean prisoners/guests Choi Eun-hee and Shin Sang-ok. North Korean filmmakers were limited in education and inspiration because many of the global filmmaking industries (U.S., England, France, Japan, etc.) were enemies of the state. Kim himself knew of North Korea’s shortcomings because he owned, in 1983, 15,000 films—in reel form, stored in a three-floor archive. Kim’s discussion with himself, witnessed by Shin and Choi, took a nosedive into a diatribe and has since played a major role in American-Korean relations.

How? Choi smuggled a tape-recorder into the meeting. The 45-minutes captured provide an unparalleled window of frankness into the unusually candid thoughts of the dictator. The tape has since been circulated among international intelligence agencies not solely possessed as the Dr. Claw to Fidel Castro’s Inspector Gadget (“I’ll get you next time!”). Indeed, that tape is really what spurred the image of Kim Jong-il that Westerners have come to see/parody, topping out in the 2004 film “Team America: World Police”—a film Kim, in all real likelihood, saw and owns.

So Shin and Choi got to making movies again, with mid-level budgets, no expectations and a staggering amount of creative freedom. It almost sounds like a good couple of years, and even was during the smallest moments. Shin held periodic story conferences with his sole producer, and world leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. Nah, just kidding. It was Kim Jong-il. Shin and Kim found some cultural overlap and appreciation for historical dramas. Shin worked behind the camera and Choi worked in front—at one point creating the first on-screen kiss in North Korean cinema. With no less than a literal arsenal to his head, Shin’s first 6 films pleased Kim.

Despite the ultimate creative freedom and spouse-reunion afforded to Shin and Choi, they frequently discussed escaping, though perhaps none as urgently as on their trip through Berlin. Shin and Choi, like always, were ushered to the designated destinations by an entourage of armed guards. At one, point they were within a block of the U.S. embassy and Choi tried to make a run for it. Shin tackled her right there, saying that he would not allow the two of them to try an escape unless they were 100% certain to get away with it. 99% certainty wasn’t good enough for Shin, who had not only spent over four years in prison for his last escape attempt but also already underwent the pain of losing Choi once before.

Back in North Korea, during one of the film shoots, Shin realized it’d be kind of cool to blow up a real train in a movie and tentatively asked one of his assistants to pass along the requests to his unstable, military-minded, film producer. Within days, Shin got the go-ahead. The go-ahead to blow up a North Korean train. For a film nobody would see outside of North Korea. As Shin and Choi were far from content in their employed imprisonment, it’s possible that Shin was just having a little bit of fun with Kim—asking to destroy North Korean military property under the guise of filmmaking. Best. Sabotage. Ever.

Inspired by this (minor) act of destruction against the regime, in 1985 Shin took up Kim’s suggestion to do a Godzilla-esque monster story, called “Pulgasari.” This gets a little confusing (oh, NOW you tell me), but this idea of a monster growing large and desecrating an Asian population was something of a story-telling staple over there. In fact, there was a Godzilla-esque monster movie called “Bulgasari” released in 1962. And even now “Pulgasari” (1985) is frequently (yet incorrectly) referenced as “Bulgasari”—again, despite any production relation to the real “Bulgasari” (1962).

As a film, “Pulgasari” just may well be the Fran Tarkenton of insane Korean films. 1970s gibberish, occasionally separated by screams of extras—mostly farmer-clothed North Korean soldiers. While “Godzilla” may be bold and stirring with its sardonic parody of U.S. nuclear power flattening, then eventually saving the Japanese population, the symbolism of “Pulgasari” is so formless yet heavy-handed that you’d swear that Kim Jong-il threw mud at the camera lens and Shin just kept it there out of spite. Pulgasari is a monster born of rice balls and blood who eats metal to grow big and protect the poor peasants of Korea. Seeking justice, or perhaps just food, Pulgasari launches a series of arguably coherent attacks on the military-industry centers of society, only to grow larger. With the former (capitalist?) regime in ruins, Pulgasari turns on the peasants and just all around acts like every step he takes crushing the villagers stubs his toe.

"I am not a Pokemon! And I am freaking out!"

Had Shin, South Korea’s own Orson Welles, gone insane? Only as insane as the smartest fox, apparently. Because Kim Jong-il absolutely LOVED “Pulgasari.” After seeing the film, Kim threw the entire film studio a feast, likely totaling some 60% of the nation’s daily food supply. Kim praised “Pulgarasi” as the best film ever made, which is ridiculous because it was not named “The Lion King,” nor starred Robert Duvall.

The next movie, Shin promised Kim, was going to be something special. And Kim agreed. It was time the world saw the brilliance of North (but actually South) Korean cinema. But for such global reach, they’d need to team up with an international film distributor and so, for the second time in their eight years as royal artists/prisoners, Shin and Choi got to go to Europe.

Taking a cue from the movies, the South Korean couple would save their best scenes for the end.

To be continued…