fledse

Hi, I am gonna introuce one film I saw last night.
The name is (trailer), which is how North Korean refugees have to live and how they escape from North Korea and China.

The video in English is avaliable in youtube.
Part 1, 2,...., and 10.

Based on real story from one North Korean refugee, movie directors wanted to describe terrible ending of a family in North Korea.
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If you watch this, you will probably think North Korea is, at least until as of today, the worst nations ever existed in entire human history.

Hitler's Nazi or Stalin's soviet is probably nothing, compared to North Korea being descrbied in this movie.

I am also pretty sure you will be soaked or cry over it since I did.

Just imagine that you have to face that situation after watching movie.
I would rather take suicide if I were ever to face the situation described in moive, hoping that in next life, if any, I never wanna born again as human.

Hopely, if you guys trust me, I can assure that it is, at least, worth of your time and taste a little bit of North Korean society under Kim Jong il.

Thank you so much!

Jebusrocks

its from the guy who directed Hwasango!! It had better be better....

Fluffybunny

Thanks for this, I'll watch it tonight!

Have you seen Joint Security Area? If so, what is your take on it?

Fluffybunny

I just watched it already. Very powerful stuff! Definitly a dvd I want to add to my Asian collection.

I had not realised N. Korea had labour camps. Obviously I knew that living conditions were harsh and the government is very strict and jails "traitors", but I was unaware of such camps.

How biased would you say the film is Fledse?

Hoplite

If I had the chance I'd behead Kim Jong Il and his men.

fledse

For "such camps," we can only know it through North Korean refugees, who were often sent to concentration camps. Some American human right institution say "more than 200,000 North Koreans were under the conditions described in the movie." Considering North Korean population is 20 millions, it is 1 percent of the populations though we can not confirm it due to lack of the information.

The Americans concluded it based on satellite pictures, concentration camps size, and testimony from the refugees.
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For "how biased the film is," I think it is pretty close to the fact that North Korean had to face in the concentraion camps.Since we do not experience it, I think we can count on their numerous testimonies that all say they were worse than what movie described.

In fact, since lots of South Koreans could not believe what movie described, there have been lots of conference conversation introduced by North Korean refugees, who explained it more detail.

These refugees commonly testimonied there were numberous labor camps, otherwise, how North Korean authorities could control them? Everyone in North Korea is working so hard in daytime, and those who committed crimes are allowed to take rest? It is nonsense if North Korean authorities allow them to take rest in jail, just wasting lots of food which even innocent citizens can not eat sometimes.

Though I don't think those North Korean guards are just kicking children with rifle deck, but lots of stuffs are based on true story such as entering "German Embassy in Shenyang in 2002," which the movie describes.

But, it is true that North Korean boarder patrol guards are all armed with rifles and real bullets, and they will shoot anyone trying to pass the boarder illegally. The only way to escape North Korea is through China, but there are high moutains all over the boarder and deep rivers. So, someone should risk his or her life, and currently, North Korean authorities does not allow them to go to cities near China unless his identity is confirmed. So it is even illegal to reside cities near China without permission.

fledse

Chinese authorities also sent boarder partol guards near North Korea, and if Chinese authorities get the refugees, they just send them back to North Korea, where there are labor camps waiting for "the traitors," as depicted in the movie. Chinese do not give them any asysulm visa, but illegal aliens (or immigrants), so by the law, North Korean refugess are illegal status to stay in China.

But, Mongol, Russia, and other South East Asia such as Philiphines, Thaliands, and Vietnam will give them a asylum visa to North Koreans. So if the refugees enter these nations, it is almost sure that they will go to South Korea or United States depending on their choice. (Mostly they wanna live in South Korea since they are not good at speaking English).

Or, as depicted in the movie, sometimes, the refugees enter foreign embassy since the foreign embassy is that nation's jurisdiction. (For i.e, German embassy in Seoul is not Korean jurisdiction, but German jurisditction, and thus German terrority, and so do Korean Embassy in Berlin)

In 10 years ago, it was pretty easy to enter foreign embassy in Beijing or other Chinese main cities, but .

Except China, every other nation in the world would like to give North Korean refugees asylum visa.

fledse

I actually didn't see it, which I do not know why.
But, I heard it is pretty intersting talking about DMZ lives.

Lots of Korean movie or drama are fusion, that is based on the fact they add director's imagination.

So, I heard Joint Security Area is based on the fact of one murder incident that really happend, the movie director add somewhat interesting points in order to attract more audiences.

JSA was in charge of U.S. military stationed in Korea, but as of 2007, the responsibilities has been all left to South Korean Army, which you might wanna know.

Fluffybunny

Thanks for all the info!

I was in Korea a few years ago. We visited the DMZ but not JSA. There was not that much to see, but it was interesting nonetheless.