Beyond Utopia (2023)
Genre: Documentary / History
Duration: 115 minuten
Country:
United States
Directed by: Madeleine Gavin
Stars: Barbara Demick
IMDb score:
7,9 (5.063)
Releasedate: 21 January 2023
Reviews & comments
N00dles
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- 633 messages
- 2308 votes
Special documentary in the sense that it really follows the fleeing family as they make the perilous crossing to China and ultimately reach the safety of Thailand via Laos and Vietnam with the help of the brave pastor Kim.
Ultimately, a touching ending when it turns out that the entire family has arrived healthy and safe and has settled down a bit. All's well that ends well, although that cannot be said for a woman whose son was caught while attempting to cross and was sent to a gulag.
Furthermore, unique images (nothing is staged) of everyday life (and education) in North Korea.
It remains a bizarre country that is still in the grip of the Kim regime after all these decades. I hope to one day see the Kim dynasty die out, a coup take place and that fat man come to a painful end. But if you brainwash your citizens so much and maintain such a strong system of social control, it remains to be seen whether things will ever get better there.
Translated from Dutch · View original
De filosoof
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- 2487 messages
- 1698 votes
Stories from North Korea are always both harrowing - because the state terror there is comparable to Nazi Germany - and intriguing because the people do not revolt because the regime succeeds in completely isolating the population and making them believe that it is outside North Korea. - Korea is even worse: outside North Korea there would be a kind of Hobbesian state of nature where everyone bashes each other's brains in with the Americans as a kind of murderous zombies so that the regime - no matter how cruel - is preferable to no regime and the purpose of life of the North -Korean is nothing other than the worship of the ruler Kim-Jong-Un because what they have in civilization or life they owe to him. In fact, the regime plagiarizes the Bible by presenting the ruler as a kind of Jesus – the Messiah – so that the Bible is the banned book par excellence in North Korea. The documentary is about a South Korean pastor who helps defectors to flee, following both a failed and successful attempt. What is striking is that the local intermediaries who are needed to save the people are purely motivated by money and that communist countries such as China, Vietnam and Laos ruthlessly extradite North Koreans who have fled to North Korea where they die a certain martyr's death: they are merely Christians who care about the North Koreans.
Translated from Dutch · View original
mrklm
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- 11629 messages
- 10041 votes
North Korea is the most dangerous country in the world. After watching this impressive documentary, there is little to argue against that. Gavin speaks with defectors such as Hyeonseo Lee, who now lectures worldwide about the real situation in North Korea. Unique images of life and North Korea – including shocking images of interrogations – confirm the stories that Lee and other defectors tell. The most special thing about this documentary is the registration of the attempt of the Roh family who crossed the heavily guarded Yalu River to reach China and, with the help of willing farming families and especially the moral and practical support of Sung-eun Kim, the founder of a smuggling network who defected to South Korea, had to travel thousands of kilometers through China, Vietnam and Laos to reach the safety of Thailand.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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