North Korea: Inside The Mind of a Dictator

Jan 18, 2021

1h 26m

★ 6.1

Overview

A journey through Kim Jong Un’s past and present to understand the man and the myth who holds North Korea’s uncertain future in his hands.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

72 Films

North Korea: Inside The Mind of a Dictator Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Self (archive footage)

Kim Jong-un

Self (archive footage)

Kim Jong-il

Self (archive footage)

Kim Il-sung

Self (archive footage)

Xi Jinping

Self (archive footage)

Ri Sol-ju

Self (archive footage)

Kim Jong-nam

Self (archive footage)

Kim Yo-jong

Self (archive footage)

Moon Jae-in

Self (archive footage)

Donald Trump

Self (archive footage)

John Bolton

Self (archive footage)

Mike Pompeo

They speak the same language, share a similar culture and once belonged to a single nation. When the Korean War ended in 1953, ten million families were torn apart. By the early 90s, as the rest of the world celebrated the end of the Cold War, Koreans remain separated between North and South, fearing the threat of mutual destruction. Beginning with one man's journey to reunite with his sister in North Korea, filmmakers Takagi and Choy reveal the personal, social and political dimensions of one of the last divided nations on earth. The film was also the first US project to get permission to film in both South & North Korea.

0.0

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True crime meets global spy thriller in this gripping account of the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of the North Korean leader. The film follows the trial of the two female assassins, probing the question: were the women trained killers or innocent pawns of North Korea?

7.2

Crossing the Line

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In 1962, a U.S. soldier sent to guard the peace in South Korea deserted his unit, walked across the most heavily fortified area on earth and defected to the Cold War enemy, the communist state of North Korea. He became a star of the North Korean propaganda machine, but then disappeared from the face of the earth. Now, after 45 years, the story of James Dresnok, the last American defector in North Korea, is being told for the first time. Crossing the Line follows Dresnok as he recalls his childhood, desertion, and life in the DPRK.

7.9

A State of Mind

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Two young North Korean gymnasts prepare for an unprecedented competition in this documentary that offers a rare look into the communist society and the daily lives of North Korean families. For more than eight months, film crews follow 13-year-old Pak Hyon Sun and 11-year-old Kim Song Yun and their families as the girls train for the Mass Games, a spectacular nationalist celebration.

7.0

General Idi Amin Dada

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3.4

Kadyrov, The Dictator of Chechnya

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The lifestyle, self-styling and political opinions of Chechen dictator Ramsan Kadyrov are examined in this documentary.

6.2

Kimjongilia

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The first film to fully expose the humanitarian crisis of North Korea, this stylish, deeply moving documentary is centered around astonishing interviews with survivors of North Korea's vast and largely hidden prison camps, and interspersed with archival footage of North Korean propoganda films and original art performances.

6.0

The Fantastic

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In Maija Blåfield’s documentary, eight former North Koreans talk about what it was like to watch illegal films in a closed society. In addition to the 'waste videos', South Korean films were also smuggled into the country via China.

6.5

Against Oblivion

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10.0

Cinema in the Land of Comrade Kim

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The love of Kim Jong Il, the former dictator of North Korea, for cinema and his adventures, including the kidnapping of a director.

7.1

Echoes from a Sombre Empire

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Documentary examining Bokassa's rule in the Central African Republic using the testimony of witnesses and visits to key sites.

6.7

Camp 14: Total Control Zone

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Shin Dong-Huyk was born on November 19, 1983 as a political prisoner in a North Korean re-education camp. He was a child of two prisoners who had been married by order of the wardens. He spent his entire childhood and youth in Camp 14, in fact a death camp. He was forced to labor since he was six years old and suffered from hunger, beatings and torture, always at the mercy of the wardens. He knew nothing about the world outside the barbed-wire fences. At the age of 23, with the help of an older prisoner, he managed to escape. For months he traveled through North Korea and China and finally to South Korea, where he encountered a world completely strange to him.

9.0

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6.5

Dictator: One Crazy Job

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They’ve become the human face of inhuman barbarity. Leaders like Hitler, Idi Amin Dada, Stalin, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceausescu, Bokassa, Muammar Kadhafi, Khomeini, Mussolini and Franco governed their countries completely cut off from reality. These paranoid leaders were driven to abuse their power by the pathology of power itself. Dictators are driven by a relentless, thought-out determination to impose themselves as infallible, all-knowing and all-powerful beings. But they are also men ruled by their caprices, uncontrollable impulses, and reckless fits of frenzy, which paradoxically render them as human as anyone else. The abuses they committed were clearly atrocious, yet some of them were as outlandish as the characters portrayed in the film The Dictator. They sunk to depths worthy of Kafka: so incredibly absurd, they are outrageously funny.

7.8

Bureau 39: Kim's Cash Machine

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7.0

The Propaganda Game

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6.8

The Game of Their Lives

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A BBC documentary producer is given unprecedented access in North Korea to chronicle the story of the famed 1966 World Cup team from the North that advanced to the quarterfinals. The feature includes interviews with surviving members of the team, English fans and soccer pundits who saw the North Koreans upset Italy, 1-0.

6.4

Nazis in the CIA

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7.7

Beyond Utopia

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