Documentaries on Korea

ralphrepo · Mar 23, 2009

FYI, Journeyman Pictures is a London based, independent film company that produces documentaries on all sorts of things from around the world. Here are some of their short films about Korea. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry; others will make you angry, and still others will make you proud. All in all, every one is a fascinating glimpse into that complicate phenomenon known as Korea:

NOTE: IF EMBEDDING WAS DISABLED, JUST DOUBLE CLICK ON VIDEO FRAME TO BE TAKEN TO YOUTUBE WHERE YOU CAN STILL SEE THE VIDEO.

(These are but a small sample of Journeyman's clips about Korea, there are many more available on Youtube and at their Journeyman website. Just typing the term "Korea" netted 35 videos by Journeyman on Korea)

Secret Victims & Decades Apart - North Korea

October 2003 - Hundreds of South Koreans have been abducted and spirited away to the Communist North. There they are brainwashed and forced to work as spies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFvO2BKhWqg&feature=channel

5 December 2000 - The June summit between Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong Il gave millions of Koreans hope of reunification. "One day I got a call saying my brother was going into the [North Korean] army. I saw him at the train station... and I haven't seen him since".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuB8ZMayQTA&feature=channel
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Parallel Universe, Tourist Facade & Communist Toehold - North Korea

July 2007 - How do North Koreans feel about their country's nuclear ambitions and their place in the world? This rare report from inside Pyongyang provides a rare insight into the mindset of North Koreans. Is Pyongyang really prepared to demolish its Yongbyun nuclear facility? At the demilitarized zone in North Korea, a military officer explain why his country needs nuclear weapons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSMQrMV5vcM&feature=channel

January 2003 - North Korea may have expelled the UN nuclear observers but it remains keen to welcome tourists. We go undercover in Pyongyang, where the shoddy tourist façade fails to conceal a much darker reality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNUlZwGEygM&feature=channel

May 1995 - A child struggles to smile at our camera because it is forbidden to look sad. Farm labourers wear make-up in the fields and at a cement factory no workers or cement can be seen. North Korea is determined to present a perfect face to the world but cannot hide the failure of its isolationist policy. Building projects stand idle and the country is having a hard time adjusting to life without communist leader Kim Il Sung. Each day thousands gather to weep before his statue. From Pyongyang we visit the 38th parallel - watched by tense southern soldiers. At the International Sports and Culture Festival for Peace North Korea's wrestling champion triumphs over his blond American opponent to rapturous applause - a staged win in an allegedly hostile world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhnaJp89_6A&feature=channel
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North Korean Camps, North Korean Refugees, The Great Escape, Escape From North Korea & Living Hell - North Korea

November 2008 - The only escapee of North Koreas most brutal prison camp has lived to tell us a story of unspeakable horror. Starved of food and common humanity, Shin proves that gulags are still a tragic reality. We were always hungry. Shins most vivid memory of his life in the camp is the constant hunger he felt, food made me escape, even if it was going to cost me my life. The only thing that interested me was the food. Before his escape three years ago, he didnt even know that a world existed beyond the barbed wires. Until then, his life had been one of torture, hard labour and complete isolation. My mother was supposed to inform on me and me on her. He believed she deserved her fate as he witnessed her execution. I blamed her. I had no real feelings as a kid. Shin didnt know love, only violence. Once the guards beat a little girl on the head so hard, she died the next day. He eventually escaped through a gap in a high-voltage fence. His charred legs still bear the scars. As horrible as it is, Shins story is not unique. Wang, himself a former prisoner, is a prominent writer on the subject. He believes that oppression in North Korea will keep increasing: The brutality of the system has grown to the point where Kim Jong Il now fears that he will suffer the same fate as Caucescu of Romania. He simply wants to kill all his enemies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FZMwoY7DyM&feature=channel

October 2007 - They risk all trying to make it across the North Korean border to China, only to find no guarantee of a better life. At constant risk of being deported, these refugees live a half life in the shadows. "I thought if I came to China life would be better", laments one woman. "I was wrong". Without Chinese language skills, most North Korean refugees remain at risk of being discovered by the police. "The police pay 200 yuan to anyone who discloses the whereabouts of North Koreans", explains one refugee. "That's what I'm most afraid of. I'm always hiding". Easy prey for the unscrupulous, they're forced to do dangerous jobs for little money. "Most North Korean women fall into the hands of human traffickers", states activist Tim Peters. "They're sold into prostitution". Unlike other countries, China classes North Korean refugees as economic migrants. If caught, they face return to Pyongyang and almost certain execution. "North Koreans are being sent back by the hundreds", complains Peters. Without external pressure, the situation for these refugees is unlikely to improve. Their only hope is that scrutiny surrounding the 2008 Beijing Olympics will encourage China to change its policy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe1G63j1Jqw&feature=channel

April 2003 - Up to 300,000 North Koreans may have fled to China, only to find their poverty and persecution continues. Secret filming reveals the plight of these refugees as they then try to flee to the West.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsrBBJTXnsU&feature=channel

Aug 2007 - So many people have defected from North Korea that the government is now building a wall along the Chinese border. This exclusive report follows one family's dangerous exodus. At a safe house in China, a brother and sister collapse into each other arms. For months, 'Uncle Jung' has been trying to smuggle his sister and her family out of North Korea. Today, they crossed the Tumen river into China. "We wanted to wait for darkness but were afraid the guards would find us", explains Park Myong Kwan. "So we just jumped into the river". One risky journey may have ended for the Park family but another is just beginning. China regularly returns refugees to North Korea where they face almost certain execution. In contrast, Thailand deports immigrants to South Korea. Over the next week, the Parks will travel by any means possible to the Lao border, a journey of 4,000 miles. They don't speak Chinese and don't have any documents. "We feel like we're lying on a chopping board right now", confides Park Myong Kwan. "It's like we're gambling but the stakes are our lives". But for them, the gamble pays off. They make it to Thailand before being arrested. In a few months, they will be flown to South Korea, where they can build a new life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0EeXTG4mWw&feature=channel

27 March 2001 - We return to the tragic story of the Kim family -- forced to give their children up to orphanages to escape hunger and the deprivation of living beneath the ground. Seven months after we last met them, the Kims were arrested thanks to an informer and forcibly returned to North Korea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS4stnuzBg4&feature=related
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North Korea's Lifeline - Japan

Sep 1998 - Despite its insularity, North Korea is successfully exporting its fanaticism through half a million expatriates living in capitalist Japan. Chongryun, the Workers Party of North Korea, is meeting in Tokyo. It's easy to imagine we are in the heart of North Korea as over 10,000 fiercely patriotic members come together to celebrate the dictator Kim Jong II's party leadership. Commitment to the cause starts young thanks to the Party schools run outside the jurisdiction of Japanese education authorities. This is the first time that the Northern Korean community has allowed any Western media to film inside their schools. Taught in Korean with censored North Korean text books, these children will never hear any criticism of their homeland. We follow eighteen year old Jong Ryol and his classmates as they prepare for their graduation visit to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang: a school trip into a country still considered hostile to the outside world, but for these students, a journey "home". Jong Ryol returns from his trip with a glowing report Yet the bulk of funding from Japan does not come from patriotic ex-pats. Most of Japan's 18,000 gambling parlours are owned by Koreans with an estimated $250 billion turnover. While North Koreans overlook their leaders's autocratic ways, it seems he turns a blind eye to the origin of the money his regime receives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaY1_NRaIWU&feature=channel
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The Juche Era - North Korea

November 2003 - Just what does make North Korea tick? In every sense the country and its people still see themselves at war. Isolated and ostracised for decades, everything in this quirky place is choreographed to display maximum unity and strength. Produced by Bulgarian TV this unseen film manages to travel throughout the country. It provides an enthralling and unique behind the scenes view of a country which rarely allows outsiders to see inside.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZtPxTm9ZUM&feature=channel
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Freedom Village - South Korea

June 2005 - In the middle of the demilitarised zone in Korea sits one of the strangest villages in the world. This fortified outpost is a key element in the ongoing propaganda war against the North. "I'm always feeling the tension," complains resident Yoon Sun-Duk. "We never let our guard down." In the event of a North Korean invasion, his village would be the first place attacked. But ironically, the biggest threat to the village comes from peace. Currently, residents pay no taxes or rent and homes are subsidised by the South Korean government. Average incomes here are five times

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EsK7pBfSVo&feature=channel
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Disillusioned Defectors & Prisoners Of Conscience - South Korea

Sep 1997 - Fleeing starvation and a brutal military regime, defectors crossing from North Korea to the south were once national heroes. But they feel increasingly like outcasts, finding it impossible to fit into modern, capitalist society. Kim Hyung Duk escaped from North Korea at the age of 20, his body covered with torture scars from North Korean police. But once in the south he found the alien culture and indifference of the authorities too much to bear. He was caught at the port of Ulsan stowed away on a ship bound for China, trying to go home. Defectors such as the Cho family enjoy luxuries unheard of in the north yet are regarded with suspicion by neighbours for the support they receive from the government. Others such as Kim Young Seh hold a burden of guilt. The wife he left behind in the north was forced to marry someone else. Unusually, Dr Lee Keum admits publicly that the government is not as keen on reunification as it once was. However, South Koreans are becoming less eager to take on the burden of their northern neighbours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0QVkf-B0qc&feature=channel

March 1999 - South Korea has finally released some of the former North Korean soldiers who have been languishing in its jails for decades. A frail and pale 71 year old, Woo Yong-Gak is believed to have be the world's longest serving political prisoner. Another lifetime ago in 1958 Woo was a North Korean officer unlucky enough to get caught. He was locked away as an enemy of the state. Hundreds of other young communists were taken alongside him. Archive footage shows the young men lined-up in loin clothes, heads shaven, being doused with flea powder on their way to brutal jails. "Any conversation is forbidden. We couldn't even touch each other it was complete isolation and loneliness." 41 years of solitary confinement later Woo and 16 other elderly prisoners were released. Ahn Young Ki was also imprisoned for 38 years. A baby in the modern world, he fumbles with his seat belt: "I now have to learn to live again." Yet despite their treatment behind bars, the prisoners spirits have not been broken. They both refuse to report to the police; an act of defiance that could easily get them re-arrested thanks to the draconian National Security Law. The reforming South Korean President, Kim Dae Jung was himself a prisoner and is promising to change the law. Yet he has so far been unable to force the nations deeply conservative lawmakers into action. And while the NSL lives on political activists keep filling the cells vacated by Woo and his kind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCdW4dEg2Gk&feature=channel
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Flashpoint - North Korea

Mar 2003 - North Korea one of the world's great weapons proliferators. Yet the world has not treated it as the greatest threat. Just 12 km away from the North Korean border, the US army prepares for an attack. Colonel Patton is in charge of the training: "We train in all types of conditions because we have to be ready to fight tonight." The North Korean army has more than 1 million men prepared to fight until the bitter end, with thousands of chemical missiles trained on Seoul and 37,000 Americans on border. However many South Koreans believe it is America that poses the greatest threat to peace for the region. Ha Sang Nam is waiting to be re-united with her brother who has been stranded in the North for 50 years. "I just hope there will be no more wars. We are separated because of the existence of the war." However German doctor Norbert Vollersten backs Bush. "There is a genocide going on in North Korea. There are crimes against humanity and we have to do something." An engaging overall look at the current crisis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKPoszoFzgI&feature=channel
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Dismantling The Unions - South Korea

Sep 1998 - When the nation spiralled into economic chaos, the IMF stepped in. Yet their financial medicine proved a bitter pill to swallow. Threatened with massive lay-offs, Hyundai workers staged a desperate strike. Families barricaded themselves behind new Hyundai cars, tanks of petrol ready to burn the lot. Violence has flaired. At one point 15,000 riot police were poised to charge. A lot is at stake - over 1 million people have already lost their jobs this year. And with the IMF fiscal belt-tightening squeezing-out the welfare state, many are living on the streets. The capital's subways have become a no-go area for the police. Filming with a secret camera we find what they're afraid of. Bitter and destitute, the fallen huddle in corners sleeping with their children under newspaper. A former top executive tells us that people are dying everyday of cold. For S.Korea, the Hyundai Union confrontation is pivotal. If the unions are crushed here, they are crushed everywhere. Yet the tides of change are not with them. Sadly, the lay-offs go ahead, and Hyundai are left to weather the economic storm unimpeded. A poignant tale of a nation's people struggling to survive in economic turmoil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM8GbxuJrHw&feature=channel
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Dying For A Game - South Korea

November 2003 - South Koreans spend up to 12 hours a day playing computer games. It's an addiction that in some cases is proving fatal. It's estimated that there are more than a thousand professional 'gamers' in Korea. Most live in dormitories, spending virtually all their waking life in front of a computer screen. Computer companies spend millions supporting and training the gamers. But is this national sport really good for the country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5hG67zeqcU&feature=related
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Documentaries on Korea

ralphrepo Well-Known Member