"The capitalist cinema, which promotes a few 'popular stars' to curry favor with the audience, is in essence a reactionary art form which reduces the stars to puppets and the film to a commodity. There cannot be a genuine creative spirit, and the beautiful flower of art cannot bloom ..." -- "On the Art of the Cinema"

"Shall we make Mr. Shin one of our regular guests?" Kim asked the crowd at a birthday party for one of his generals, after Shin's career, and life, was given its new lease. A lot of cognac was being drunk. The general in question was boasting that he could take Pusan in a week, tops. Military men marched in a circular review, saluting Kim. On stage, a bevy of young women jumped up and down screaming, "Long live the Great Leader!" Most jarring of all was when Kim shook his arm and made this aside, pointing at the display of fawning: "Mr. Shin, all that is bogus. It's just pretense."

This puzzling confession, Shin writes, lingered in his mind as he drove in a Mercedes to the new office of Shin Films. Soon he'd be entrusted with an annual paycheck of $3 million for personal or professional use, even as he formulated an escape plan. By following the advice for directors in "On the Art of the Cinema" -- "BE LOYAL TO THE PARTY AND PROVE YOURSELVES WORTHY OF THE TRUST IT PLACES IN YOURSELF" -- he would hope for some opportunity to escape, maybe during a trip to an Eastern Bloc film festival.

Sometimes resigned to his stay, Shin took comfort in his increasing material well-being, and in making movies again. When it came to choosing subject matter, he told the Seoul Times in 2001 that there were "fewer restrictions than is commonly believed." He said he even introduced the first kiss to the military-centric North Korean cinema.

All ideas, however, were approved by Kim Jong Il as arms of his ideology, and were developed in story conferences with him. The dictator wanted to make crossover movies that would simultaneously project a fearsome image to the world while somehow improving how North Korea was perceived. He wouldn't listen when Shin told him that shrill, anti-Japanese movies would not find widespread appeal.

Shin was free to fly to East Berlin for location shots -- though shadowed by ever-present escorts. He recalls walking past the U.S. Embassy with his wife, who tugged at his sleeve and made a face suggesting they run for it.

"What's the matter with you?" he hissed. "I will not make an attempt unless it's one hundred percent certain. If they caught us, we'd be dead."

Besides, he was taking his new career seriously, and was eager to get work done. He even claims that in 1984 he was able to produce the finest film of his career: "Runaway," the tragic story of a wandering Korean family of 1920s Manchuria, coping with Japanese oppression and the dishonesty of their neighbors.

After that, however, came a very different kind of movie. Loosely based on a legend of the 14th century Koryo monarchy, "Pulgasari" owes much to "Godzilla." He invited some monster-movie veterans from Japan to come to his studio, which had swelled to 700 employees, to help with the picture. When Kim guaranteed their safety, they came to work on "Pulgasari," including Kempachiro Satsuma, the second actor to wear the Godzilla suit, who soon dressed up as the lumbering, google-eyed Pulgasari, who scatters imperialists to the winds but also finds time to help carry the people's firewood.

[To view a 45 second video clip of "Pulgasari," please click here. It is available through ADV Films.]

Pulgasari, in fact, is definitely a monster of the people. When the wicked king oppresses the people, a jailed blacksmith molds a tiny character out of rice, declaring he will use the last spark of his creative power to bring the doll to life.

As the farmers are starving under the king's rule, the doll, Pulgasari, eats iron and grows. The cherubic toddler Pulgasari soon grows into a horned beast whose clawed foot is the size of a person. And since this is a movie made under the guidelines of "On the Art of the Cinema," there are seemingly endless shots of the peoples' folk dances. During these, Pulgasari can be seen brooding on the outskirts of the festivities, relaxing against a hill and looking ridiculous.

Finally, Pulgasari leads the farmers' army in an assault on the king's fortress -- and against thousands of North Korean military troops who were mobilized and dressed up as extras. Ultimately, the king uses his experimental anti-Pulgasari weapon, the Lion Gun. (It's hard not to think "nuke" when the hammy villain delights in his new acquisition.) But the enterprising Pulgasari swallows the missile and shoots it back at his oppressors. Finally, the king is crushed beneath a huge falling column.

Then the movie becomes curiously ambiguous. The beloved Pulgasari turns on his own people. Still hungry for iron after his victory, Pulgasari begins eating the people's tools. The confusing conclusion seems to find salvation in the spirit of the people. When the blacksmith's daughter tearfully pleads with Pulgasari to "go on a diet," he seems to find his conscience, and puzzlingly shatters into a million slow-motion rocks. Then, inexplicably, a glowing blue Pulgasari child is born, waddling out of the ocean. It's a terrifically bad movie.

The movie can be read in two ways. On one hand, it is a cautionary tale about what happens when the people leave their fate in the hands of the monster, a capitalist by dint of his insatiable consumption of iron. But it is also tempting to read the monster as a metaphor for Kim Il Sung, hijacking the "people's revolution" to ultimately serve his purposes. Wondered a fan at StompTokyo.com, "Were these, as some commentators have speculated, Shin's attempt at subversive editorializing on the conditions in the country?" Now, of course, "Pulgasari," approved and funded by North Korea's even more dangerously unstable current leader, seems eerily prophetic.

Nonetheless, when the movie was delivered to Kim, he saw it as a great victory. Trucks pulled up to Shin Films to unload pheasants, deer and wild geese for the movie crew to feast on. Word came from Pyongyang -- "The Dear Comrade Leader was delighted with Pulgasari" -- and many of the workers were moved to tears at the praise.

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