A while ago I took a look at a film theory book by Kim Jong-Il I mentioned how on Open Culture they also linked to a copy of one of his films available on YouTube. I’ve recently watched it and, if curious, you can take a gander here. It’s a North Korean communist take on a Kaiju-type story.

Things to bear in mind:

• The video quality of this YouTube upload is not ideal.
• Turn on CC and there will be Spanish subtitles. Using the Auto-Translate function removes most of the issues.
• The narrative is better than expected
• Sound effects are at times nonsensically juxtaposed to the action, seemingly by accident.
• The pacing is miserable. It’s 95 minutes long but feels like it takes at least a half-hour longer.
• The first act is it’s best but it takes a precipitous dive from there. The introduction of Pulgasari serious downgrades the amount of gravitas it can hope to achieve and there is not much escapist fun either.