Also known as (supposedly somewhere) Zombie 34: Communist Bull Monster.
We’ve seen poster and even tagline is better than the movie stories, how about lore is better than the movie? This movie isn’t bad, it’s gonna get like a 3.5 or so, but how can one beat this lore??!
Apparently North Korea wanted a few movies and didn’t have a strong cinematic culture. So why not steal from the South? They kidnapped a South Korean director and had him make them a few movies including this one. He later escaped during a film festival somewhere, but what?! Crazy!
Pulgasari is a Korean legend, and this reminds me a lot of the Daimajin films. Specifically these are all films that take place feudal times and revolve more around the monster as a blessing and a curse.
The soul of a blacksmith gets roused to protect his daughter from a warlord in this North Korean epic. When she is in pain, Pulgasari gets raised first as an inch tall creature and will eat iron to grow larger and larger until it is Godzilla size and the warlord is trying to stop it. First with fire, then with a stone trap and then with cannons, nothing seems to work to stop the monster.
Featuring a great costume and fun effects, this is a kaiju film that also embraces some of the silliness of the Godzilla series around this time. There are segments that remind me of Godzilla and Son and there are segments that harken back to classic Godzilla films. I’m a little bit surprised that this is such a hit because it is very similar to most of the fare around this time, but I suppose that it was popular enough that there was room for one more.
I don’t believe honestly that this was ever truly released with the Zombie title. Maybe it was they just didn’t know what to call this… But whatever it doesn’t matter. I hadn’t seen this since high school, and it was fun to revisit so I’ll give it a 3.5.
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