Diagonaldi Very well executed

SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Ortiz Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

beetle-259-554148 I first heard about Pulgasari when the late Emer Prevost covered it on Reaction & Review. He absolutely HATED the film and just tore it to shreds, saying that the miniatures would've looked like garbage by 1965 standards, the acting was nowhere to be found, among other things.When I watched Pulgasari, I was expecting the worst film ever, something that barely qualifies as a kaiju film. Emer's opinion made me think that the production value was going to be akin to a school play; obvious cardboard furniture, obvious cardboard miniatures, I was basically expecting a kaiju equivalent to Manos: The Hands of Fate. Thankfully, Pulgasari was not THAT bad. The acting is very poor but there are a handful of actors who are trying. The monster costume looks amazing, it's on par with the Heisei Godzilla suits! The animatronics are good, Pulgasari is actually able to show emotion!The miniatures are good, on par with the miniature effects of the '70s.Still I can only recommend this movie for die-hard kaiju fans, those who want to watch every kaiju film ever. Me personally, the chances of giving this movie a second watch is very unlikely.I had made a top 10 list of worst giant monster movies. Pulgasari was number 3, with Godzilla's Revenge at number 2 and finally Gamera: Super Monster at number 1. Having now seen Pulgasari, it's position on the list is still number 3.The fact that Gamera vs Barugon, at the time of me writing the review, has a lower rating than this when it's a far better movie, makes me trust IMDb a little bit less.

AllNewSux Definitely not your average kaiju film and not just because it's North Korean. This movie has some destruction and loads of fire, but about 75% of that comes from the evil government. Yes, some people would call this a "propaganda piece" because how dare you say the peasants are being treated terribly by their feudal monarchy. The government heads make sure to steal from, starve and torture the citizens and what's sad is this is what is happening regularly in North Korea to this very day. I hate to get political here, but that's really what the film is about. The titular character is more of a side story or simply a way to draw a bigger audience. I mean we don't see any creature for over 20 minutes and we don't see any kind of giant monster until 20 minutes after that. Large and small, Pulgasari is on the side of the peasants who revolt against the governor and then the king after they can stand no more abuse. Pulgasari charging the battlefield was easily the funniest thing I saw in this movie, but unlike something like Mothra or some Godzilla sequels, I don't think this is supposed to be humorous in any way...did I mention the torture? Considering this was done in the mid-80s the monster suit is about 15 years behind the times and at times they use rear screen projection which is what they used for King Kong back in 1933! Despite that, it's still a good story of rebellion against forces of evil, I would just question if we even needed the monster? For me the film could stand on it's own as a historical, war, action piece, but I have to admit as a kaiju fanatic it was the picture of the monster that made me want to see the film in the first place and that was probably what the North Korean government was counting on...

franciscowendell I like to watch Kaiju films and this Korean monster movie it's a funny monster movie with great battle scenes. In the beginning I supposed that will be other bad movie, but after some scenes you'll be invited to appreciate the story about poor villain people that fight against a bad king and his cruelty governor. Besides the poor special effects, most of them inside the atmosphere behind the Pulgarasi monster, other great battle scenes with hundred extras acting and fighting, You'll like all the crew efforth to create power and big scenes. This movie was produced by Jong-il Kim and directed by Sang-OK Shin. This is the first movie that I watch directed by Sang-OK Shin, but I felt interested in watch other movies directed by him.

markrschulz Seldom have I watched a movie that fails so completely in all that it attempts to do. There could be a good reason for this, however; the director and two leads were abducted from South Korea by Kim and then forced to partake in this schlock whilst the Dear Executive Producer Kim Jong Il ran the show. This was ten years before he became the ruler of North Korea. I guess he runs his country on the same principles as he ran the production of this movie. (Un)fortunately the kidnapping victims escaped before the movie could be completed, which could explain much of the disjointed nature in the latter part of the film. Quite bizarrely, the director's 'punishment' was to have his name removed from the credits, until he SUED the film company to have it re-instated, although heaven only knows why.The movie opens in a nameless village somewhere in Chosun Dynasty era Korea. A peasant girl is fetching water from a well. She is a kind and selfless young woman, as indicated by her desire to see the old people fed first at dinner time. Her father is the town blacksmith and makes many tools for the farmers. All is not well in the idyllic village, however. An evil king sits on the throne and a great rebellion/war is brewing. He has his army appropriate all the metal in the kingdom in order to forge weapons. It emerges that the leader of the bandits/rebels lives in this particular village and has hidden a weapons cache near the blacksmith's forge. The first of many 'epic' battle scenes unfurls as Korean People's Army soldiers forced to act as extras fight it out dressed as wicked royal guards slavishly obeying the king and virtuous peasants defending their right to bear pots and pans. Yawn.The rebels are routed and arrested, and the blacksmith is then drafted to make weapons out of the confiscated metal, but allows the village people to take back their items when the army leaves. The army comes back and discovers the iron gone and this leads to his imprisonment and torture. As a form of protest, he decides not to eat and begins to starve. His daughter, Ami, tries to get him to eat rice balls by throwing them to him through the bars of the jail. He is a man of principle, however, and refuses to eat even this food prepared by his loving daughter. Instead, he makes a little figurine of the rice balls and clay and makes a dying wish to some unseen force to give it life and help the peasants. He then dies and the obligatory wailing so prolific in North Korean films starts. Once Ami, her brother, her mother, the village, the bandits, and their dogs have recovered from the loss, wiped their tears away and shouted 'aigoo' for the last time, the little sculpture finds its way to Ami. She pricks herself whilst sewing and some blood splashes onto it, bringing it to life. Pulgasari is born, and from this point on the movie never lets you forget that his name is PULGASARI! Every time PULGASARI gets screen time there is an annoying peasant/bandit/king/vizier/random extra shouting 'It's PULGASARI!', 'Hey, PULGASARI!', 'LOOK OUT IT'S…' or 'HERE COMES …' Only the heinous abomination that is 'The Outlaw of Gor' can rival the number of times the lead character's name is repeated as part of the movie dialog.So moving on, Pulgasari starts out small, he eats the needle Ami was using, then he eats the door hinges, then he eats the scrap metal in the forge. He grows bigger and bigger under Ami's control, since it's her blood that infused him with life. I immediately saw a problem with this monster; the peasants' woe is due mainly to the fact that the king wants all their metal for weapons, but their newfound hero eats the same metal. The rest of the film uses made for TV effects reminiscent of 'Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers' as Pulgasari stomps his way through Feudal Korea MiniTown, killing the king and liberating the peasants. Stuff happens along the way but the rubber suit is more convincing than the plot and character development. Predictably, the monster continues to eat metal, and becomes a burden to the peasants. Ami sacrifices herself by hiding in the village's bell before Pulgasari eats it. Pulgasari and Ami die. Roll credits on the ninety minutes of my life that cannot be taken back; a horrid mess of a movie that cannot be unseen.Reflecting on the didactic nature of the several North Korean films I have watched IE: Peasants Good/Powers that be Bad, I'd have to say that there you could interpret this as a young Kim Jong Il giving the middle finger to an establishment that had molded him from a young age to take over from his father, despite his wishes of film making glory. In 'The Flower Girl' we see how the peasants are oppressed and need the Korean Liberation Army to free them, it takes food, lives and money (metal) to support in order to drive out the Japanese Imperialists (the evil king taking the peasant's resources) but once in power, the KLA and the Communist Party continue to take all of these things from the peasants, eventually requiring the peasants to die in order to rid themselves of the scourge that they themselves have helped feed. The irony would be delicious, but I think that it's actually just a ham fisted attempt to knock capitalism; yet another aspect of this movie that fails with unintentional, yet hilarious results.