Educational Media Reviews Online

This International Emmy Award winning documentary offers a compelling look at North Korea. Filmed in the month of August in the capital of P’yonyang, the northern mountainous region of Mohjang, and at P’anmunjom on the South Korean border, the crew was tightly monitored by North Korean chaperones. Only North Koreans with government permission were given clearance to speak with the film crew. They speak glowingly of the late Kim II Sung and his fifty years of leadership. The film shows that Kim II Sung’s son continues this grotesque personality cult. Numerous monuments to the country’s leaders are shown along with empty luxury hotels, a clean, modern subway station busy with well- dressed healthy-looking people. The world image of a starving population versus what was shown to the filmmaker is striking. The insertion of surreptitiously obtained black-and-white film images of starving children and interviews with exiled dissidents contrasts strongly with what the North Korean regime tries to show the world. The strong cultural differences between the two Koreas are further emphasized through interviews. We hear in the North unanimous praise of Kim II Sung and his son and in the South its message of freedom and economic growth. Even the night filming of the two Korean capitals shows the strong differences between the two countries. The North, with very little lighting, numerous power outages, and unpopulated city streets versus the South, with its garish, bright, neon lights and teeming street life. After viewing this technically excellent film, and acknowledging that 1,000,000 soldiers face one another on the border, one comes away understanding the danger to world peace that this clash of cultures has produced.

Recommended for college and other libraries that serve such an audience. Warning: contains graphic description of rape and murder.