Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 focuses on the arrival of a dangerous new Titan being unleashed on the planet, but Wyatt Russell‘s Lee Shaw also name-drops a mysterious creature called “Pulgasari.”
The binge-worthy MonsterVerse show has finally returned to Apple TV+ and picks up in the immediate aftermath of the first season, with Cate Randa (Anna Sawai), Keiko Miura (Mari Yamamoto), May Hewitt (Kiersey Clemons), and Shaw (Kurt Russell) arriving back from inside the Hollow Earth.
Unfortunately when they get back to the top, they arrive on Skull Island in the middle of Kong’s rampage, and the season will be about discovering what is sending him into a frenzy.
There have been plenty of rumors about which classic monsters might show up in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2, but Shaw references a deep cut kaiju in one of the first flashbacks of the season.
What is Pulgasari in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2?
During the flashback to Southern Chile in the 19650s, the younger Lee Shaw, Keiko Miura, and Bill Randa go hunting for a strange creature that they’ve heard rumors of that surfaces along the coast. While they’re on their journey, Lee jokes about Bill wandering around Korea looking for a Pulgasari, a creature that’s a cross between “a bear and a rhino” and eats metal.
This might go over some audience’s heads, but the Pulgasari in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 is a reference to the 1985 movie of the same name, which was a co-production between North Korea, Japan, and China… yes, really. Just like Bill explains in the show, the Pulgasari is a creature from Korean folklore, and it was the inspiration for the movie.
The monster movie sees a blacksmith create a small Pulgasari figure out of rice before praying to the gods to give life to the creature so it can protect his family from the oppressive King they live under. The Pulgasari comes to life when his daughter accidentally cuts her self and the blood falls onto the small model. The creature grows every time it eats metal, and becomes a weapon if war against the king.
It’s not quite as iconic as the likes of Godzilla and Kong, but the Toho film was a great way of leaning into Korean mythology. The Pulgasari hasn’t appeared in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2, but there’s still plenty of time for the writers to pay it off.
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