Yonggary (character)

Did You Know?

• In 2008, graphic designer Hong Gi-hun created semi-official toys of the 1967 Yonggary with Shim Hyung-rae's blessing.
• Two sets of the semi-official Yonggary toys were presented by film director Kim Ki-duk.
• The 1967 film was released in Germany as Godzilla's Todespranke (Godzilla's Hand of Death).

Overview

The name Yonggary combines the Korean words "Yong" (dragon) and "gari" (derived from Pulgasari, a chimeral beast from Korean mythology). The character rights are held by Younggu Art, founded by Korean filmmaker Shim Hyung-rae, who directed the 1999 film. The original 1967 spelling used a single "G", while the 1999/2001 version used two "G"s. The 1967 Yonggary was a single-celled organism from space that mutated into a giant monster after radiation exposure from a nuclear bomb test. It was portrayed by a man in a rubber suit; Masao Yagi, who built the Gamera suit for Daiei, supervised construction. Director Kim Ki-duk found the suit lacked terror but proceeded due to time and budget constraints. The suit cost ₩1.2 million ($5,000 USD) to produce, and Cho Kyoung-min portrayed Yonggary for ₩100,000 ($400 USD). The 1967 Yonggary has a bipedal reptilian design with a long horn on its snout, tusks at the side of its mouth, a single row of dorsal fins, and spikes on its tail. It breathes fire and primarily feeds on oil and gasoline. In the 2001 upgrade edition's opening credits, Shim Hyung-rae is credited as creator of the 1999 incarnation. Miniatures and suits were produced for the 1999 film but replaced with CGI during post-production, making the 1999 Yonggary nearly entirely computer-generated. The animators used a "pipeline method" described by Park Chang-yong as a continuous process enhancing efficiency from 3D modeling to rendering. The film used 45 minutes of computer graphics.