Sanctions.
> though Kim despised the Japanese, he set aside his pride and flew in the special-effects team of the original films, along with Kenpachiro Satsuma, the man inside the Godzilla suit. According to Satsuma, he and his crew members thought they had been hired for a film shooting in China when they landed in North Korea instead.
The production and release sections of the Wikipedia article are interesting. It was intended for wide release by a Japanese company, then banned by the NK government after the director fled. In the 90s it saw a wide release, even in South Korea. The then-escaped director tried to sue it off the air.
This moment where baby monster bites a sword is epic: https://youtu.be/MHV-UOdBek0?t=1647
It gives insights into the minds of some modern leaders... The idea that you have to kill the monster which saved you.
The part at the very end where the woman kills the monster and sacrifices herself with it (out of principle) is brilliant. At the end, the soul of the monster joins with the body of the woman and the camera zooms in on her face... You assume that it will bring her back to life but actually, she is not moving and you can't quite tell if her eyes are open or closed (dead or alive)? There's something deep behind the ambiguity.
I suspect Kim Jong Il saw the monster as a metaphor for capitalism or globalization, the woman as a metaphor for a revolutionary leader (maybe Kim himself) and the monster's relentless hunger for metals as a metaphor for greed-driven industrialization but I wonder to what extent did he see it as a metaphor for his own communist movement? The message seems to be that even though she did a bad thing killing their saviour, she did it with sound morals because she was willing to sacrifice herself. She knew it was the right thing to do to contain the monster's relentless greed. But I feel like the part at the very end where the soul of the monster joins her body is a way to show that she is forgiven because it's the intent that counts... Maybe a subtle hint that a good leader is rewarded for having good intentions and conviction but is it purely an ideological reward of being spiritually 'made whole' or also material (she gets to live)?
It makes me wonder if Kim Jong Il may have been tempted to turn North Korea into a capitalist society under the thumb of globalists; keep feeding the beast which had originally (in his view) freed his people from past oppression but instead, he decided to politically 'sacrifice himself' for his people by betraying that globalist monster which had helped him.
There is a statement at the end which essentially amounts to blasphemy in the west: "To keep feeding him, we will have to keep sending him to other countries to wage war. We cannot do this to the world." Ouch.
As unfree and poor as North Korea may be, this is an incredibly blunt, honest take.
So they make up Stories to justify their actions and shift focus away from the costs.
Some people buy the stories. Some people don't. Because with complex problems its like the Universe is in Superposition. The wave function can't collapse. Stability is maintained through incoherence.
Tale as old time.
Older you get there are better things to do than spend time watching people attempt things way above their pay grade.
Typically, they will end the call immediately.
domoregood•2d ago
https://archive.is/ldZDX