ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Walter Sloane Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Waupli This documentary is very important. It helps to show the manipulation that must go on daily in North Korea. The constant reminders to "be more joyful" or to act "with patriotism" demonstrate this. It is well worth watching, if for no other reason that to see how Orwellian the world can become if allowed.But by the end of the film, I felt sympathy for everyone involved. The children, the parents, and even the handlers.While the children and parents are being directed by the handlers, the handlers are following the directions of those above them, and so on. These handlers are simply people who want to do their jobs and avoid punishment, the same as everyone else. You can see it, especially in one scene towards the end, when they are tucking Zin-mi into bed. The North Korean director looks as tired as anyone else, and as downtrodden. Everyone has a role to play, it seems.The film is conflicting because you have to wonder what could happen to these people for their failure to censor this film adequately. Or for their failure to act appropriately patriotic in some of the takes that the censors didn't want us to see. We have to hope that the honesty of this film didn't lead to anyone coming to harm.

Pikston This filmmaker is of the leave-the-camera-on school, also of the cut- nothing school, a dangerously boring combination.Guess I have to write more than just a hot take. I wish bad filmmakers suffered a video quality penalty. Good cameras are so accessible these days that everyone thinks they can direct. I really can't believe I allowed this movie to suck 2 hours of my life like the worlds most uninteresting eel. Have I expressed how annoyed I am at this doc? I don't even want to give it the satisfaction of addressing it's content. I feel like the director was trying to brainwash me into enjoying completely unrestrained self-indulgent dullness. Wow, there's still 20 minutes to go. Unbelievable.

nbp-3 A beautiful example of capitalist propaganda and false post-soviet Russia. The film is about anything, with an attempt to distort the reality of the situation.A feeling that the film was shot by order of the ugly capitalist society, which still can not understand that the consumption - is the path of degenerates, but the patriotism - the way of real people.I have lived and worked in North Korea for twelve years, and the people there are wonderful and amazing in its resistance against the aggression of America and Japan - countries that have not achieved anything in their lives, but killed a lot of good in the world.It becomes ashamed of the director, the sponsors and the entire film crew, who could not feel the life of an alien country.I do not recommend this anticommunist propaganda to anyone in this world.

marsanobill Russian director Vitaly Mansky spent almost a year in Pyongyang shooting a propaganda film about an 8-year-old girl's entry into the Children's Union, the political organization that every NK kid must join. He knew that in the land of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and now Kim Jong-un he would be intensely 'supervised' in every respect; not allowed to film anything on his own; not permitted to talk to the actors; and be required to use the script the North Koreans provided. But his cameras each had two digital recording cards so he could give one, containing 'official' footage, to his bosses while keeping the cameras rolling to surreptitiously record forbidden images. Thus we see stage-managers staging everything, constantly appearing from the wings to coach the actors (usually to be more joyful—and patriotic); other images betray the weight of oppression: the morning public exercises (instructions blare from loudspeakers in the public square); reflexive and repetitive statements by everyone fulsomely praising the Kim dynasty (for heroism, self- sacrifice, generosity, loving care, ad infinitum/nauseam); a decorated Korean War vet (at least three dozen gigantic medals on his tunic) meekly and bewilderedly submitting to the stage-managers' instructions on what to say and how to say it. And then there's Pyongyang itself, a city of three million—but where are all the people? You hardly see them except in singing, forced-smiling packs of school kids, who march or run rather than walk to endless classes on the greatness of the Kims. The city is not only colorless but featureless: no fast food joints, no small businesses, no billboards, no neon, no bustle. Everything is vast, the favorite dimension of tyrants: the squares, the public buildings, the towering bronzes of the holy Kims. A telling shot is of an enormous expanse of asphalt that can be recognized as an intersection only because in its middle stands a lone traffic cop, forlornly waiting for traffic to direct. No one smiles save on command; no one speaks save to praise the 'Generalissimo' or the 'Respected Leader,' and they know absolutely nothing about the world outside North Korea. The film closes with the little girl, Zin-mi, and the scene is heart-breaking as it is horrifying. A teacher frets at her emotionless blank stare and repeatedly insists that she be happy say what makes her happy. Zin-mi is vaguely aware that SOMETHING is required of her but she's not sure how to be happy for the teacher. Finally, after more urging, she reaches desperately into her memory and begins to dully recite the oath she took when joining the Children's Union. It is shattering to realize that you have just watched an eight-year-old child turned into a robot.