A little light reading for a Monday…

Here are a few of my favourite quotes as I (not for the first time) flick through Kim Jong-il’s seminal tome on how to make a film (in North Korea).

“A film without music is incomplete.”

“In a wide-screen film, it is better to shoot long scenes which match the flow of life and to prolong the effective emotional content by means of efficient editing based on the unrestricted movement of the camera.”

“Make-up in a noble art.”

“Success in acting must be assured by persistent effort.”

I really love it when people contact me through the site asking for help, and I love it even more when I can prove helpful. Recently a gentlemen sent me images of vinyl record he has of North Korean cinema songs. It’s a truly beautiful thing but he asked me if I could help him identify the movies pictured.

UPDATE: Thanks to our Korean-speaking friend Remco Breuker, we can identify the above image as coming from “Spring Comes to Mount Thaebaek Mountain” (태백산에 봄이 온다).

As someone who doesn’t read/speak Korean, nor have I seen every DPRK film made, I was wondering if there was anyone out there who could help us identify two of the films I wasn’t able to find. The first image (above) stumped me, but there are a couple below the break which I could find. Can you help?  Leave a comment or send me an email (dprkfilms@gmail.com)

There appear to be three films on the above image, with the one at the top alluding me.

UPDATE: Remco also identified the top image of these three as “First Steps/The First Step/The Beginning” (첫걸음). Great work for reading the label! I will look to see if I can find more details on both these movies.

Bottom, right:
“Yong Su and Yong Ok in the Socialist Homeland” (Two parts), no year given.
“The film shows the happy and worthy life of brother Yong Su and sister Yong Ok in the embrace of the socialist motherland, in contrast with their past life if the different system and realities in the South.”

Bottom, left:
“Rolling Workers” (Two parts), no year given.
“This film shows the heroic struggle of the workers of Kangson who are the first to raise the torch of the Chollima Movement by turning out 120,000 tons of steel at the blooming mill with rated capacity of 60,000.”

The above is:
“The Undying Soldier“ 영원한 전사, no year given
“The film is based on the facts of the struggle and life of comrade Ma Dong Hui, a revolutionary fighter who was infinitely faithful to the Great Leader Kim Il Sung in the days of the anti-Japanese war.”

Next we have the labels on the record itself which may point to the music contained and also explain what the remaining images are… if anyone can translate and let us know, that would be great.

Well, it’s almost with a heavy heart that I unleash this on you. A few months back a lovely man called Charles emailed me a link to a site that was hosting over 500 North Korean films for download. At around US$2 each.

So there. I faced it. The reality of chasing down copies of North Korean films off dodgy Russian torrent sites, the awesome people I meet on the comments board of this site, has become needless. The internet is an amazing place, but I just miss the days when you could trawl around looking for things for days/weeks/months and not find it. Now it’s all here under one roof.

So Hong Kong company KMVC5 (and they’ve made it even easier by giving you the option to put it in English) representing Mokran are offering you the best chance to get hold of literally hundreds of hard to find North Korean Films, cartoon, performances and documentaries.

So go there. Watch movies and let me know about them. In the meantime, I’m going to watch this YouTube clip of a Mokran factory in North Korea making DVDs. What an absolute banging soundtrack.

I know I promised the mother-lode  but I’m afraid it’s just going to have to be another taste. Here’s the first part (there are three in total) of a DPRK documentary about Kim Jong-Il’s efforts as a producer in North Korea.

Fascinating because: you see interviews with actors, some great pictures I’d not seen before and, best of all, it’s in English.

Happy Friday everyone.

I discovered the mother-lode of North Korean films. More on that later. For now, here’s a documentary – in English – on the cinema in the middle of Pyongyang. So happy to have tracked this down.

It’s coming up to two years that I’ve been intermittently running this site. And before that it was a a good year or two that I was talking about writing “something” about North Korean cinema. The casual observer would well be within their rights to say that this site is haphazardly put together and rarely updated. It’s often because work or life get in the way. And after an 11-hour shift I more regularly opt for the easy watch, instead of delving into my bulging collection of DPRK films to watch and review.

Throughout the hours of time I’ve spent Googling for information on North Korean cinema – finding dealers to buy films, searching for books which reference anything to do with film production – there is one man who stands above them all in terms of North Korean cinema: Johannes Schönherr.

Among the throngs of websites trumpeting “facts” about Kim Jong-il’s cinephilia, the kidnapped stars from South Korea forced to make movies and the giant film library that served his love for Rambo and other Hollywood tosh, if you look deeply, you’ll find articles written by Johannes Schönherr.

Steering clear of those easy nuggets, his articles has managed to accumulate an outsiders view of the history of North Korean cinema. From interviewing Spaghetti Western director Ferdinando Baldi about the unbelievable Italian-North Korean co-production  Ten Zan: The Ultimate Mission (1988), to reviewing all of the films that Shin Sang-ok made during his time in North Korea, Schönherr has recorded for prosperity’s sake some marvellous adventures associated with North Korean cinema that those of us unable to read Korean may never have discovered.

So now comes the release of his excellent book North Korean Cinema: A History. Here, for the first time in English, we are given the opportunity to bring together pretty much everything available in English on the subject. Too long had snippets of information been contained in lofty academic texts, or merely hinted at in generalist newspaper articles. Exploring, thematically as well as chronologically the history of DPRK cinema, Schönherr charts the rise of the medium with reference to other Communist states.

Of course, we like Johannes Schönherr here on this site. He kindly comments on some of our articles. He’s even forwarded me material or highlighted an interesting news story from time-to-time that would be worth picking up on. But what we need to point out is that he’s actually knuckled down and written the only “essential” book on North Korean cinema that you could need.

By turns academic (when discussing the early years of development in the DPRK’s cinema), to anecdotal (on speaking about his experiences visiting the Pyongyang Film Festival, there is enough breadth in the book to appeal to a large number who are interested in not only film but in the DPRK itself.

As the DPRK begins to – inevitably – open up over time, who knows what more we can learn about Kim Jong-il’s cinema-loving regime. Perhaps there’s a huge amount to discover that will delight and bemuse us all in equal measure. But then again it might all be condemned to be lost in history. If so, thank goodness we have Schönherr’s book in English to educate us on what there is available to know.

You can purchase the book from Amazon here. I don’t get any money from sales but I was sent a review copy free of charge. 

I dug out some footage from Chinese broadcaster CCTV of the Pyongyang International Film Festival that is going on at the moment.

I am sick as a dog not to be there – alas my application to enter a film into the festival was not accepted… in fact I just never heard back after a long period of time getting things together for the application. Oh well, perhaps I can go in two years time.

The member of the audience speaking is Korean and his soundbite translates as:

“It’s my first time to take part in the film festival. I am so excited. I think Chinese movies are the best.”

Johannes Schönherr dropped me a line the other day to highlight an interview he conducted with Masao Kobayashi, the producer of Somi – the Taekwon-do Woman.

Always good to hear from the man as he highlights another little insight into making movies in the DPRK. You might remember us speaking previously about a potential screening of the DPRK-Japan co-production in London in an earlier post. If you are interested in seeing the film, please contribute!

A little down the line I hope to have a review of Johannes Schönherr’s book on North Korea cinema which has now officially been released. Grab your copy here.

I’ve knew Nick Bonner during my time in Beijing and had long heard of his dream of filming a rom-com in North Korea with an entirely North Korean cast. So I was especially pleased when a long-time follower of the site forwarded me this New York Times article about the imminent release of the film Comrade Kim Goes Flying.

The film is due to get  a premier at the Pyongyang International Film Festival and we’ll keep an eye out for it turning up on DVD, too.

CORRECTION:

As was pointed out to me on twitter, these guys are actually searching for money to make this screening happen! If you want to see it, contribute!

Well it’s not often I get to highlight screenings of North Korean films here on the site and it’s even more rare that I get to do it in the city I live in:

The Zipangu Fest - which describes itself as UK’s independent Japanese film festival - is screening Somi – the Taekwon-do Woman (1997) – aka  Woman Warrior of Koryo - (on 35mm film!) at the Cinema Museum in Kennington, London on Friday September 14th 2012.

Regular readers will remember this is one of the films that DPRK film expert Johannes Schönherr mentioned in his interview back on the site a few weeks ago.

If you’re in London do not miss the opportunity to see this Japanese-DPRK co-production. More can be read about the project of bringing the film to the UK on the Crowd Funder page.