Reviews
Revisiting ‘Pulgasari’ (1985), or “Remember That Time Kim Jong Il Made A Monster Movie?”
Did you know Kim Jong Il was a big fan of movies?
It’s recorded that the second Supreme Leader of North Korea often said he wanted to be a film critic or a film producer as a young man. He even ended up writing the handbook that would shape North Korean movie making (titled On The Art of Cinema), and according to some sources he aided in the production of as many as 100 movies in his life. Among his best-known works are 1969’s Sea of Blood and 1972’s Flower Girl, both about the Korean independence movement of the 1930s and Korea’s conflicts with the Japanese occupation of the country.
His best-known film is a kaiju movie about a giant monster that eats metal.
A MYTH, A REMAKE, AND A DREAM OF MONSTERS
We are of course talking about 1985’s Pulgasari, a movie based on the Korean myth of the Bulgasari, or Bulgasal. It’s also loosely a remake of the 1962 movie Bulgasari, a lost South Korean film that, to my understanding, only a singular surviving copy of which is known to exist is in the custody of the Korean Film Archive. Despite its lackluster reception at the time, Bulgasari was the first piece of South Korean film to have proper special effects in it, making it an artistic watershed moment in Korean film history.
The Bulgasari myth that the film is based on goes as follows: an innocent blacksmith (or his daughter in some versions) is killed by an unjust regime, and an effigy of a monster is created and imbued with life by his wish, becoming the Bulgasari. The creature is then sent to destroy the oppressors by eating the metal from their weapons. The creature becomes gradually stronger and larger with each conflict, until it runs out of control. Seeking more metal to satisfy its hunger, it ironically conquers the people it was supposed to protect.
When a deep sense of love for filmmaking collided with an even deeper sense of nationalistic pride in the idea that North Korea could become a filmmaking powerhouse, Il’s efforts to make a film about this story turned towards the talents of South Korean filmmaker Shin Sang-ok, and his ex-wife Choi Eun-hee. Sang-ok was undoubtedly an odd choice for a medieval movie about a raging monster, since his experience and claim to fame was primarily in war dramas about the exploitation of women. A plan to get ahold of Sang-ok, combined with the revival of Godzilla in 1984 as the Heisei-era was set in motion, solidified Il’s plot.
As the story goes, a would-be dictator then kidnapped the South Korean national treasure’s ex-wife, using Eun-hee as bait to lure Sang-ok into his clutches. It was hard for outsiders to verify that the two hadn’t defected due to the country’s insularity, and that was the story that Il planned to keep running with. These weren’t the only crew brought on either, as Il managed to deceive a whole crew of former Toho employees to join in by faking a shooting schedule in China and bringing them to North Korea instead.
THE FLIGHT OF THE FILMMAKERS
And make Pulgasari they did, with Sang-ok residing in a labor camp for the majority of his time in the country. So, what did Kim Jong Il think of the end product of their captivity?
He loved it.
After all, it was very popular among the DPRK’s citizens and in the eyes of Il, a technical marvel. The only problem was North Korea’s film industry needed a serious infusion of cash flow after Sang-ok had made several other films at Il’s behest following Pulgasari. Il’s new plan to amend this was the opposite of his original: he would actually cut Sang-ok and Eun-hee loose and allow them to travel (under the watch of armed guard) to promote the film. He’d even send them to Vienna in hopes of securing foreign investors to fund another film, this time about Genghis Khan rather than a giant steel-munching monster.
Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, the couple fled at the first opening they got, and made it into the protective arms of the U.S. via the Venetian embassy; they even ended up remarrying after the fact. Kim Jong Il supposedly struck all record of Sang-ok’s work from the public eye as a response, expunging his name from the creation, and the rest is history.
PULGASARI AND THE SOUL OF THE MONSTER
There’s been, for good reason, a lot of reevaluations of Pulgasari and its artistic merits in recent years. Its creation was the perfect storm of cultural fears turned truth, fact stranger than fiction, and urban legend turned verifiably real event. It’s just too good of a story to ignore.
The film’s themes and narrative are dynamic in this context, reignited under the shining lens of new knowledge about how the film was made and the impact it had on North Korean culture. Some find it to be an unbelievably well-made piece of counterculture, secretly weaponized against the man who wanted it made in the first place. Others find it an unwatchable and disturbing relic of film history. And some even treat it as a cult classic that lives up in quality to its reputation as a real-life production.
Ultimately, I was somewhat underwhelmed with what I found when it came to the meat of Pulgasari. It isn’t boring, certainly, so it hasn’t committed the worst sin a movie can. But as much as I can talk about liking the sentiment of the original myth, its perennial idea of the power of the collective and the dangers of centralizing a movement around one person, and the performances being surprisingly good, there’s just one big glaring problem with this monster movie: the monster is the least interesting part in the entire runtime.
In my recent conversations of kaiju films as of late, I’ve talked about the presence of a well-made monster suit; the way the mise en scene of tokusatsu can reach through the screen and immerse you, add a new layer of life to the film. But when the Pulgasari becomes the monster he’s supposed to be, he doesn’t have any of that. Design-wise, it’s a fine suit with its vaguely-reptilian-vaguely-mammalian style. But there’s a distinct lifelessness that you’ll have to reckon with when watching it; it’s stiff in motion, and plastic in the most unappealing of ways. Its scale against the buildings and people around it feels weak, which is hard to ignore in a movie where the creature’s gimmick is that it’s constantly growing.
There are just so few expressive moments outside the time in its miniaturized form where the titular creature gets to live. It stomps around and destroys, but the stage-play sort of presentation in how it’s framed feels more strange than enjoyable. The Pulgasari has an uncanny evocation of fear in its glassy and bestial eyes, but it’s a one-trick pony as far as practical monsters go. Vaguely unsettling, with little else to offer.
WHAT WENT WRONG WITH PULGASARI?
I don’t blame the craft of the Toho employees or the performance of Kenpachiro Satsuma, a Showa-era Godzilla actor who had been taken along with them to play the Pulgasari. I think what happened with Pulgasari is, ironically, the same thing that happens with many horror movies. Making a monster movie is always a gamble, and not every kaiju film will be a Godzilla vs Hedorah, or Kaneko’s Gamera. Even beyond the unimaginable pressure of being kidnapped and forced to make a film, you can have a perfect storm of talent, and still end up producing something less than the sum of its parts thanks to the unending storm of circumstances and technical issues that plague film crews.
As always, I encourage you to see Pulgasari for yourself, if not for the entertainment value you might find in it, then for the mythos that have been unveiled about its making. It’s a doozy unpacking the film knowing the truth of its birth, and more importantly not that hard to get ahold of: there are more than a few uploads online that make the film free to watch.
For the first time looking for media for an article, the rip I’ve found is on YouTube is surprisingly high quality in its remastered state.
We’re far from the time when Pulgasari was a rarity that was hard to view, so if you take anything from this, take that as a small victory and take advantage. Seize the day, and happy watching horror fans!
Whether they land or not, it’s hard not to appreciate how impressive it is that Shudder gives a platform to myriad independent films. While Screambox struggles to finish the race, Shudder is doing a victory lap. Even the greats trip up occasionally. Shadow of God is a film I heard minor rumblings about across the interwebs, and as someone who isn’t into exorcism-like films, it still piqued my interest enough to seek it out. Then I watched it.
Shadow of God: A Promising Premise Falls Flat
Shadow of God follows alcoholic exorcist Mason Harper (Mark O’Brien) as he travels back to his hometown following a death during an exorcism. Mason meets up with his ex-beau, Tanis Green (Jacqueline Byers), who gives him a place to stay while he’s back. The semi-happy reunion between Mason and Tanis is cut short when the dregs of Mason’s deceased father’s cult learn of his arrival. Everyone’s faith will be tested as something more sinister than anyone could imagine rears its ugly head.
It feels like there was a disconnect between writer Tim Cairo and director Michael Peterson, as Shadow of the God feels nothing more than scattered parts of better films clumped together into a heaping mess of something. While full of awful dialogue, Cairo’s script tells a compelling and somewhat unique take on the religious horror subgenre. The bones of a better film exist deep within the script. A rewrite (or three) could have helped to trim the fat and identify the elements of the story that truly work. On the other hand, Michael Peterson seems to have little to no control over whatever he was doing here.
Digital Effects Ruin Emotional Depth
The real issue with the film is the unfortunate digital effects slapped on before the final cut. Any semblance of an okay film quickly flew out the window with the slapdash effects. Nothing takes you out of a well-crafted emotional moment like a giant, badly composited white light shooting out of someone’s forehead. I was so checked out by the end that my final note written about the film simply says, “barn effects BAD.” To be completely honest, I don’t even know what I meant by that.
Not a singular solid performance graces the screen during this hour and 27-minute series of images. I get that independent films face difficult and unique challenges that larger budget films don’t. But the performances feel as if the cast were given the script seconds before the scenes were shot. Mark O’Brien was a huge sell for me with this film, as I adored him in Ready or Not, and it feels like [maybe] his agent dropped the ball on this one.
The Potential Buried in Shadow of God
It has been just three years since Jurassic World: Dominion put the latest trilogy in the franchise on ice with the bite force of a smurf, but like any money-maker in Hollywood, no IP stays extinct for long. Universal decided to revisit the franchise’s roots, heading back to the lab to poke and prod at its barely fossilized remains in an attempt to mix up its DNA enough to warrant a reboot. Jurassic World: Rebirth promised a thrilling return to form – a journey into dino-infested waters that put the terror back in Tyrannosaur. With horror-adjacent auteur Gareth Edwards (known for Monsters and Godzilla) directing and writer David Koepp (who adapted Jurassic Park and The Lost World), returning after a nearly thirty-year absence, expectations were colossal.
What they delivered is a glossy, crowd-pleasing theme park ride into nostalgia that never fully commits to genuine horror or the deeper scientific soul of the 1993 original. It’s enjoyable for fans who love every iteration unconditionally, but it is sure to frustrate those with a more critical eye who expected something closer to a cold-blooded classic.
Jurassic World: Rebirth – A New Chapter or Nostalgic Retread?
For those needing a refresher on the events leading up to Rebirth, you can snag yourself an honorary degree in paleontology with our handy Jurassic Horror 101. After closing out the first reboot trilogy with a whimper, Universal needed to steer the narrative away from pseudo-science and half-baked existentialism toward a more visceral experience; nothing will compare to Spielberg’s masterpiece, sweetie!
The elements for success are all here: Edwards has a strong resume in titanic horror, Koepp is the man behind the original film adaptation, and the fresh faces of Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, and Mahershala Ali bring star power to the tropics. Yet, whether due to studio interference or simply buckling under nine tons of pressure, they still haven’t figured out how to catch lightning in a bottle twice.
Dinosaurs, Big Pharma, and a Tropical Mission
Set five years after dinosaurs were left to coexist with humans, we learn that the prehistoric beasts are once again facing extinction, both physically and metaphorically. Unsustainable living conditions within Earth’s rapidly changing ecosystems are eliminating them faster than an ice age, and – perhaps in a nod to our apathy in a digital world – the humans around them largely do not give a damn. As dino merch turns to ash and people avoid the roaming beasts like an invasive flash mob, pharmaceutical company ParkerGenix recruits mercenaries Zora Bennett (Johansson) and Duncan Kincaid (Ali), along with soon-to-be-unemployed paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Bailey), for an adventure their wallets can’t resist.
It seems that dinosaurs are still thriving on small islands surrounding the equator, and ParkerGenix has discovered within these surviving creatures a medical miracle that may provide a cure for heart disease. However, this being a Jurassic movie, our beautiful trio is tasked with retrieving this biomaterial from an island overrun by failed genetic experiments abandoned by the infamous company that started it all – InGen.
Rebirth’s script does touch upon the ethical dilemmas of serving Big Pharma for a seven-figure payout. Still, these moral quandaries are explored no more deeply than a child kicking at sand on the beach, hoping to uncover something shiny underneath the silt. Thematically, the franchise has painted itself into a corner since 1993. The existential wonder, quiet pathos, and scientific stakes have since been mined dry, which makes the shift toward more human-scale horror a welcome pivot. Two reboots in, we may never see a film that so effortlessly balances terror and philosophy as the original did. So, while I could continue to rip the script to shreds, why bother? Instead, let’s get to why you’re really here and tear into the horror of it all.
Does Jurassic World: Rebirth Deliver on Horror?
As is common with blockbuster films, Rebirth finds itself at odds with its behind-the-scenes talent and the studio executives at Universal. They clearly chose Edwards for his experience with films of kaiju proportions, and Koepp’s portfolio includes its fair share of bangers, including 2025’s critically acclaimed Black Bag. The marketing heavily features the newly hatched D-Rex, a “Xenorancor rex” level monstrosity that by all accounts should be the scariest thing this franchise has ever seen. However, the cold open, which includes a Final Destination-like mishap that allows the D-Rex some bloodlust, is all too brief. And that is the film’s biggest flaw: They have to let it linger, and they don’t.
A certain sense of style and cinematic flair that horror’s best know how to use is simply missing. Is this a creative misstep, or is the studio afraid to alienate families? The hallmark sequence that strands our heroes — a franchise staple — lacks the dread felt in the original’s historic T-Rex attack or even the epic trailer cliff dive from The Lost World. Since the human characters in these movies survive far more often than they should, they could at least leave us a bit shaken after such a spectacle. That said, the film does include a tense river raft sequence from Michael Crichton’s novel that fans have been begging for since the 90s, and it is undoubtedly the movie’s highlight.
CGI vs. Practical Effects in Jurassic World: Rebirth
I could overlook the lack of scares, or at least choose to politely ignore them, if they had gone back to basics and incorporated quality practical effects. Most are aware that OG’s lasting reverence is at least partly due to its extensive use of lifelike, tangible dinosaur prosthetics and robotics. In 2025, a solid combination of quality CGI and practical magic would go a long way. Backed by Edwards’ love of lighting a dramatic silhouette, the D-Rex does have some ominous and visually impressive moments as we catch glimpses of her amidst fire and fog. Then you see mother monster full frontal without the filters, and it feels like catching sight of a sweaty drag queen after a summer brunch performance.
The editing does the film’s attempts at horror no favors either, exhibiting strange spatial logic during tense beats where dinosaurs seem to vanish between cuts and human characters appear to ignore the massive beasts that were chasing them moments earlier.
A Love Letter to Jurassic Fans
As mentioned, fans of the franchise do have a lot to love here, despite Rebirth flopping in the horror department. Instead of the over-the-top fan service found in Dominion, we are given plenty of self-referential nods and visual echoes, from mirror messages to rescue flares and raptors in the kitchen. The excellent score by Alexandre Desplat likewise resurrects a familiar tune that accompanies a sequence featuring mutated Brachiosauruses that look ripped from Annihilation, which almost brought a tear to the eye of this longtime fan. What the movie lacks in scares, it makes up for in charm, and moments like these, along with a central trio of likeable characters, are enough to keep the formulaic plot moving along.
It’s no surprise that Wicked’s Jonathan Bailey, as the eager and inexperienced Dr. Loomis, is as charming as ever. The flitters of interaction between him and Johansson’s gruffy mercenary, Zora, are endearing, and Mahershala Ali’s characterization of Kincaid rounds out the trio with enough wit to establish them as the reboot’s next generation. A paper-thin backstory helps us understand why these would-be heroes are risking their lives for the better part of two hours, leaving room for improvement in potential sequels.
There’s also a forgettable family with the personality of wet rags who get caught up in the action, serving more as catalysts for set pieces than as developed characters. Still, their scenes provide some comedic relief through Gen Z’s himbo boyfriend, Xavier (David Iacono), and a cute baby dinosaur named Dolores (could a Labubu crossover be on the way?).
Is Jurassic World: Rebirth Worth Watching?
Overall, Jurassic World: Rebirth is more entertaining than innovative. It won’t convert any skeptics into dinosaur enthusiasts, but true fans can find plenty to enjoy in this sweaty jungle romp. It’s predictable and lacks the horror elements that readers of Horror Press crave, but I had a good time despite it all. The franchise still has teeth, albeit buried deep within its gums. Hopefully, Universal will allow some creatives the freedom to yank them out in bloody glory for the next one.
Jurassic World: Rebirth is now in theaters!
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