Kim Jong Il and Movies
Before his official succession to the role of Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il was head of the propaganda ministry and its movie production division. A huge fan of Western movies, Kim Jong-Il had a collection of c. 20,000 films including James Bond movies, action films and all Academy Award winners, and was a big fan of Elizabeth Taylor and Elvis Presley. According to Paul Fischer in his book A Kim Jong-Il Production, Kim Jong-Il would show his retinue of bodyguards the Clint Eastwood movie In the Line of Fire.
Disappointed in the quality of movies made in North Korea, he aspired to produce films to keep the populace's interest and to be worthy of showing abroad. To this end, he arranged the kidnapping of famous South Korean film director Shin Sang-ok and Shin’s ex-wife, popular actress Choi Eun-hee. Shin refused to participate and spent four years being "re-educated" in prison camp before relenting. The two of them made seven movies with Kim Jong-Il, including a sci-fi Godzilla film with a North Korean twist, Pulgasari.
Pyongyang hosts the Pyongyang International Film Festival, but screens no films from the U.S., South Korea, or Japan. However, in 2012 the first film from Europe, Bend it Like Beckham, was shown to an audience of 12,000.*
The Asia Collections has videos and DVD's from and about North Korea. DVD's are now located in the main reading room (Dean Room) of Uris Library, organized by country. The VHS videos have all been moved to the Annex; they can be requested. The library is intending to expand its collection of feature films from North Korea.
(*from Bonner, Nicholas. Made in North Korea, 2017. See full entry on Art page.).
- The Cinema and Directing by Kim Jong-Il’s "The Cinema and Directing" explains the proper approach to movie-making, covering art design, acting, music, sound, and editing. This and his other works about film, including On the Art of Cinema in 1973, offer guidance on all aspects of film production. He advises that directors “keep a grip on ideological education,” and that writers and actors “create truly revolutionary works which meet the requirements of a socialist and communist society.”Call Number: PN 1995.9 P7 K53x 1987Publication Date: 1987 (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House)
- The Character and the Actor byCall Number: PN 1995.9 A26 K56x 1987Publication Date: 1987 (Pyŏngyang, Korea : Foreign Languages Pub. House)"The actor is an artist who serves the Party and the revolution by creating fine, new characters for different films."
On Cinema
- North Korean Films: Exploring the DPRK through its CinemaDPRK Film Database page has an alphabetical list of films produced in North Korea. Titles in blue links can be viewed online.
- Korean Art Film StudioOn Koryo Travel web site, fascinating look at film production in North Korea.
- Kim Jong-Il as Film and Opera Director(DPRK Video Archive, 2013) This nine-minute segment is part of the documentary "The Brilliant History of Great Leadership." (see Biography section of this guide, Kim Jong Il, to view full documentary).
A Kim Jong-Il Production: the Extraordinary True story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator's Rise to Power by
"Before becoming the world's most notorious dictator, Kim Jong-Il ran North Korea's Ministry for Propaganda and its film studios. Conceiving every movie made, he acted as producer and screenwriter.....A nonfiction thriller packed with tension, passion, and politics, author Paul Fischer's "A Kim Jong-Il Production" offers a rare glimpse into a secretive world, ..." An interview with Paul Fischer is on the home page of http://northkoreanfilms.com/
Call Number: PN 1993.5 K63 F57 2015Publication Date: 2015 (New York: Flatiron Books)
North Korean Cinema: a History by
".... no other medium remained so strictly and exclusively under state control. Through movies, the two successive leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il propagandized their policies and sought to rally the masses behind them, with great success. This volume chronicles the history of North Korean cinema from its beginnings to today, examining the obstacles the film industry faced as well as the many social problems the films themselves reveal. It provides detailed analyses of major and minor films and explores important developments in the industry within the context of the concurrent social and political atmosphere. Through the lens of cinema emerges a fresh perspective on the history of North Korean politics, culture, and ideology."
Call Number: PN 1993.5 K63 S35 2012 +Publication Date: 2012 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland)
Korean Film ArtCall Number: PN1993.5.K63 K67x 1985 +Publication Date: 1985 ([Pyongyang?] : Korean Film Export & Import Corp.)"This picture album gives an outline of over 150 typical feature films produced in our country in over 40 years after liberation" Film info Includes plot descriptions, cast and many b&w and color photos.
Organized into sections: the immortal classics, revolutionary traditions, the socialist reality, the fatherland liberation war, intelligence & counterintelligence, national reunification.
- Nordkorea: Einblicke in Ein Verschlossenes Land Doku45 min. Youtube video In German showing life on a farm cooperative; and an interview with a city teacher who speaks German Visits in Pyongyang to an English class, beauty salon, a huge indoor market, a shoe designer, a choral rehearsal, a ceremony for 9-year-olds becoming members of the youth party; a bowling alley,and more. In the city Kaesong a ginseng expert is interviewed.
Feature Films & Documentaries
- Hong Kil Dong 1986 North Korean action movie directed by Sang-ok Shin, a South Korean kidnapped and forced to create films for Kim Jong Un. Very popular in the Eastern Bloc, featuring kung-fu sequences. Based on a 17th c. classic novel with a Robin-Hood-like hero who is son of a government minister but his mother is a commoner. Some of the English subtitles are unintentionally amusing.
- Under the Sun (2016, Icarus Films, 1hr. 45 min.) "Russian director Vitaly Mansky was invited to make a film about one girl and her family, in the year she prepares to join the Children's Union. Mansky films her participating in joyous patriotic school pageants, in dance class, or with her parents, eating delicious food, in their lovely apartment. But the officials supervising the production did not realize that Mansky was filming during the scene set-ups, and after they had shouted 'Cut." The film is the jaw-dropping result, 'surreal and sinister""
Pulgasari
1985 movie by filmmaker Shin Sang-Ok in North Korea. His name was removed from the credits after he and his wife escaped from the North. The film is about a Godzilla-like monster that is created as a small image sculpted by a peasant blacksmith, then comes to life by a drop of blood, feeds on iron, grows to a gigantic size, and fights alongside rebel bands to defeat the oppressive feudal overlords.
The sci-fi film format was a new approach for Kim Jong-Il, but the film has a familiar message. Special effects with the help of Toho Studios.
Call Number: Video 4734 (VHS tape - Located in Library Annex) Movie is also on Youtube.Publication Date: 2000 (United States: Distributed by A.D.V. Films)- 두만강 / Tuman'gang [English title: Dooman River] Originally produced as a motion picture in 2009. "This fascinating window into a rarely seen corner of rural China revolves around 12-year-old Chang-ho, living with his grandfather and mute sister along the frozen river-border with North Korea. Although fraught with unemployment and other tensions, his community seems sympathetic toward the Korean refugees fleeing famine and misery; Chang-ho even bonds over soccer with one young border-crosser who comes scavenging food for a sibling. But he soon turns on his new friend as suspicions mount against the illegal immigrants and his sister reels from unexpected aggression, provoking a quandary over his loyalties in an exquisitely detailed story of compassion and strife across an uneasy geopolitical border."Call Number: Videodisc 8329 (KOR) (located in Uris Library Dean Room)Publication Date: 2011 [Soul]: (Chu) Waidu Midio)
Sara innŭn yŏnghondŭl [Souls Protest] by
In Korean. " Based on a true story. At the end of WWII Korean people that have been conscripted to work in Japan, attempt to return to their homeland. Thousands of Koreans including Cha Myong Jin (the hero) get on board the Ukishima-maru, a Japanese warship.....But they fall victim to a fiendish plot of the Japanese imperialists and are drowned in the sea." Movie is sometimes know as the North Korean "Titanic"
Call Number: Videodisc 9633 (KOR) Uris Library Dean RoomPublication Date: 2000 [P'yŏngyang] : Chosŏn Yŏnghwa Suchʻuripsa
Dear Pyongyang
Autobiographical documentary shows Yang's visits to her brothers in Pyongyang, as well as conversations with her father about his ideological faith. The family was living in Japan, Yang's father a pro-North Korean movement leader, when her brothers were "repatriated" to an economically deteriorating North.
Call Number: Videodisc 7971 (KOR) (in Uris Library Asia A/V)Publication Date: 2010 ( [Seattle, WA?] : Typecast Releasing : Eyes on Asia)- Crossing the Line James Joseph Dresnok, a US Army private, stunned the world in 1962 but walking across the violently contested DMZ that cuts Korea in two and defected to the communist North. Combines historical footage with contemporary interviews to both uncover the Kim-Jong II regime and end 44 years of secrecy and rumor by allowing Dresnok to tell his own story.Call Number: Videodisc 4734 (KOR) In Uris Library, Dean RoomPublication Date: 2007 ( New York : Kino International)
- A State of Mind Following a strict routine, which involved several hours of daily workouts and gymnastic instruction, two young girls practice through exhaustion for the 2003 Mass Games, the largest choreographed spectacle on earth.Call Number: Videodisc 2958 (KOR) In Uris Dean RoomPublication Date: 2005 (New York : Kino Video)
- The Red ChapelDocumentary by Mads Brugger. Two Danish comedians join the director on a trip to North Korea, where they have been allowed access under the pretext of wanting to perform a vaudeville act
- DPRK Films from UriminzokkiriVideos and films from Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean news website (blocked in South Korea).
- DPRK Films with subtitles66 N.K. movies uploaded to Youtube.
Performing Arts
- Arirang Mass GamesYouTube video. "Arirang Mass Games recorded on 29th August 2013 using a GoPro Hero 4 Silver. Remastered to improve exposure and remove fisheye distortion." by Aram Pan. Some breaks for ads, can "skip ad." Fascinating and quite impressive.
- Sea of Blood: Revolutionary Opera from the Immortal Classic Sea of BloodPublication Date: 1972 (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Pub. House)Popular North Korean revolutionary opera written by Kim Il Sung, 1971, (The Music Library, in Lincoln Hall, has 57 page libretto of the opera.)
On the Art of Opera by
Part of the set "Talks, Letters Essays, etc.," this treatise covers Kim Jong Il's detailed guidance and advice on the production of opera: "the times and opera" [adhering to principles of the revolution]; the libretto, opera music, opera dance, opera stage art, and opera stage presentation.
Call Number: DS 934.6 K44 A24 1982 v. 12Publication Date: 1990 (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House)
For the Further Development of our Juche Art by
In this speech, Kim Jong Il is encouraging more production of music, song and dance performances, using Mansudae Art Troupe as an example. He reminds artists that "It is the revisionist creative method to produce works with an individual taste-centered attitude, divorced from Party policy and alien to to the reality. We must hold fast to the creative method of socialist realism in the creation of the arts."
Call Number: DS 934.6 K44 A24 1982 v. 25Publication Date: 1992 (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House)
Illusive Utopia: Theater, Film and Everyday Performance in North Korea by
"Author Suk-Young Kim explores how sixty years of state-sponsored propaganda performances---including public spectacles, theater, film, and other visual media such as posters---shape everyday practice such as education, the mobilization of labor, the gendering of social interactions, the organization of national space, tourism, and transnational human rights... [The book] shows how the country's visual culture and performing arts set the course for the illusionary formation of a distinctive national identity and state legitimacy, illuminating deep-rooted cultural explanations as to why socialism has survived in North Korea... With over fifty color illustrations, Illusive Utopia captures the spectacular illusion within a country where the arts are not only a means of entertainment but also a forceful institution used to regulate, educate, and mobilize the population."
Call Number: PN 2939.1 K56 2010 also full-text online; click on title.Publication Date: 2010 (Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press)
The Dancer, Choi Seunghee: Muyongga Chʻoe Sŭng-hŭi [Title on DVD: Choi Seunghee: the Story of a Dancer"]
Documentary on the life of the famous Korean dancer Choi Seung-hee (1911 - 1969) who trained in Japan, lived in Seoul then moved to the North when the war ended (her husband was a Marxist who became vice minister for cultural affairs at one time). She and her family, because of previous connections with Japan, were detained by North Korean government and she was eventually forgotten, until rediscovered int the 1980's.
Call Number: Videodisc 7298 (KOR) (DVD located in Uris Library Dean Room)Publication Date: 2008 (Korea: Daeju Media)
강령 탈춤 / Kangnyŏng tʻalchʻum by Call Number: GT 1748 K6 C477Publication Date: 2002 (Sŏul-si : Hwasan Munhwa)(in Korean). Color photos of dances, masks & mask-making.in North Korean folk dancing.- 강령 탈춤 / Kangnyŏng tʻalchʻum Gangryeong mask dance-drama CD of traditional North Korean Gangryeong mask dance-drama. Also on order are CDs for Unyul Tal'chum and Pongsan T'alc'hum (Eunyul and Bongsan dance-dramas).Call Number: Music Library A/V (Non-Circulating) CD 23605Publication Date: 2003 (Soul-si: Kungnip Munhwajae Yon'guso)
Inside North Korea by
This pictorial work, with text, has a section of color photos and information about the Arirang Mass Games celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Workers' Party in 2005. "The games are astounding spectacles of precision, athleticism, teamwork, and showmanship, involving 100,000 performers, giant video screens, lasers, fireworks, and 20,000 to 40,000 students holding up colored cards to form mosaic backdrop scenes.."
Call Number: DS 932.4 H37 ++Publication Date: 2007 (San Francisco: Chronicle Books)
Music
- ArirangDesignated a UNESCO "Intangible Cultural Heritage," the classic folk song Arirang in this short video is traced briefly from its rural roots thru Korea's 20th c. history. From traditional performances to K-POP and the Olympics and its representation in art and film, the song is an important part of Korean culture.
- Songs and music(From Naenara web site, Society and Culture tab.) Folk songs, political/military songs, songs with lyrics by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il; links to other types of music such as TV and cartoon songs, revolutionary and war songs, reunification songs.
- UriminzokkiriShort Instrumentals and songs, many military or in praise of leaders, some nature songs, and Arirang.
- Americans in Pyongyang: the New York Philharmonic's Trip to North Korea This 50-minute online video, "Americans in Pyongyang," [2008] shows scenes of the city in winter; performances of traditional dance that orchestra members attended; master violin classes with the NY Phil's concertmaster at an unheated music academy; Loren Maazel conducting the National State orchestra; a joint US-Korean Mendelsohn octect; pre-concert arrivals, the two national anthems, excerpts of the concert and the playing of "Arirang".
Radio Pyongyang:: Commie Funk and Agit Pop from the Hermit Kingdom by
CD and pamphlet. "This then is my own personal Radio Pyongyang, constructed using that lone remaining archive tape and spiced with live recordings from various performances in North Korea. Also in the mix are sounds lifted from People's Army television dramas, captures from Mass Games demonstrations, samples from hard-to-find CD releases obtained in the North and, of course, news reports from the 'real' Radio Pyongyang . . "Field recordings, television/radio intercepts and live performances recorded in Pyongyang 1995-1998. Some shortwave radio intercepts recorded 1995 in Hong King and 2005 in Beijing."--Booklet
Call Number: CD 13984 (located in Music Library, Lincoln Hall; non-circulating)Publication Date: 2005 (Seattle, EA: Sublime Frequencies)
Mansudae Yesuldan. che 84-chip = Mansudae Art Troupe. Vol. 84. 만수대예술단. 제 84 집 by
"North Korean popular music sung in Korean, some played by instruments." 11 songs by Mansudae Art Troupe, many of them extolling soldiers, the military, and the great leader.
Call Number: CD 16679 (Music Library A/V; non-circulating)Publication Date: 2006 (Pyongyang: Kwangmyong Umaksa)
Garland Encyclopedia of World Music: Volume 7, East Asia by Call Number: REF ML 100 G16 Vol. 7Publication Date: 2001 (New York: Garland Pub.)Part 5 of vol.7 contains extensive information about Korean musical history and forms. .A section of Chapter 3, "Composition and Creativity in North Korea" (p. 960-963) is an overview 1948 -2001 of North Korean genres.
The online version of the book also has many audio samples of music.