This is a great documentary about the North Korean soccer team that staged a series of improbable upsets as they advanced through the 1966 World Cup. More than just a sports documentary, it’s a fascinating look at the hermetic nation of North Korea, as well as 1960’s England fascination with their little known or understood guests.

700MB | 01:20:12 | 640×352 | avi

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Language:English
Subtitles:English (srt)

The post Daniel Gordon – The Game of Their Lives (2002) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Eusebio scores four goals to help Portugal come back from 3-0 down to defeat underdogs North Korea 5-3 at Everton’s Goodison Park in the 1966 World Cup quarter-finals.

The football legend has died at the age of 71.

Widely considered one of the best players of all-time, he scored 733 times in 745 professional matches

Even in defeat, the North Koreans were, by now, undoubted ambassadors for their country. The warmth was shared on both sides.

When Dan Gordon visited the players in North Korea, they were eager to return to Middlesborough. But were they just victims of a Communist system that had driven them to do well?

Not according to Dan Gordon, who says that modern football has only just caught up with the fast-paced style that the Koreans played:

“Football in 1966 was incredibly slow, and nowadays teams play like the Koreans did in 1966… I wouldn’t call them victims at all… they were visionaries.”

https://nitroflare.com/view/67C676FDDB2E649/North_Korea_world_cup_1966.mkv

Language(s):English Korean
Subtitles:English

The post Daniel Gordon – North Korea World Cup 1966 (2014) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

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 then simply disappeared from the face of the known world. He became a coveted star of the North Korean propaganda machine, and found fame acting in films, typecast as an evil American. He uses Korean as his daily language. He has three sons from two wives. He has now lived in North Korea twice as long as he has in America. At one time, there were four Americans living in North Korea. Today, just one remains. Now, after 45 years, the story of Comrade Joe, the last American defector in North Korea, is told.

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Based on our work on the two North Korean films over the last five years, VeryMuchSo Productions, in partnership with Koryo Tours, has gained the trust of the North Korean authorities. This has enabled clear and unrestricted access to James Joseph Dresnok and to the North Korean-based families of the other U.S. defectors.
how the film was made

After a negotiation period of over two years, filming began in June 2004 with a two hour interview with Dresnok and Charles Robert Jenkins. The North Korean authorities considered this initial meeting too sensitive to be filmed, as the Jenkins family issue was no nearer a resolution and a final agreement on filming had not actually been signed. This was a decision the authorities would later admit to regretting, as Jenkins had a very different story to tell once he left North Korea. A small amount of filming took place afterwards which features in the film.

In September 2004, just days after Jenkins had publicly alleged that Dresnok would tie him up and beat him on behalf of the North Korean authorities, the filmmakers were in North Korea interviewing Dresnok, who had no idea of the detail of these allegations. His immediate and emotional reaction is captured in the film.

In November, having attended Jenkins’ court martial in Japan—Japanese authorities banned all filming—the crew flew immediately to North Korea to film, shooting on High Definition. This trip included an extensive two and a half hour interview with Dresnok in his home and a further hour of interviews with Dresnok and his fellow film stars.

Furthermore there was a 90-minute interview with Parrish’s wife, where she talks of her life with her husband and addresses the allegations of how she came to be in North Korea. Also filmed was two sets of interviews with the sons of Parrish and Dresnok and with their friends, as well as a tearful interview with the University classmates of Jenkins’ daughters, who had left for Japan four months’ earlier. And finally there was an hour-long interview with hospital staff, those doctors and surgeons who have treated all the Americans over the years. Among the many issues they addressed was the allegation that they botched Jenkins’ operation in April 2004.

More time was spent with Dresnok included fishing (his favourite pastime and one the four Americans enjoyed together) and bowling. Dresnok notes the irony of such an American pastime being popular in North Korea. He is filmed having his monthly heart check up. There is a visit to the restaurant where he met both his wives in Korea and a revolutionary opera. In addition, Dresnok gives a guest lecture in English at the Grand People’s Study House. Filming was suspended when Dresnok was rushed into hospital after complaining of chest pains.

The crew resumed their shoot in the United States in April 2005, tracking down the early lives of the four defectors, and noted the effect the defections had had on the friends and family they left behind, and a month later, in May 2005, arrived in North Korea for their final shoot.

(crossingthelinefilm.com)

NOTE: The audio goes out of sync at around 01:01 for the rest of the film, but it’s bearable, since the narrator is mostly talking behind the scenes.

704MB | 1h 30m | 720×400 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/78F50C24CB9455D/BBC4_-_North_Korea_-_Crossing_The_Line.avi

Language:English/Korean
Subtitles:English (where korean spoken)

The post Daniel Gordon – Crossing the Line (2006) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

“A riveting BBC documentary that illuminates the character of that nation.” — Jeff Shannon, SEATTLE TIMES

“Striking footage from North Korea, the country with the world’s fewest visitors.” — Harvey S. Karten, COMPUSERVE

“Priceless footage inside the secret church-state of North Korea and the beautiful Mass Games, this documentary sheds little light on the people themselves.”  — Ron Wilkinson, MONSTERS AND CRITICS

“Gordon gives an intimate, balanced account of how political power, famine, power shortages and a hatred of America have shaped their young lives.”  — Paul Malcolm, L.A. WEEKLY

“The biggest value of the movie is the depiction of Pyongyang life, the elaborate Mass Games choreography, a wondrous road trip to the revered Mount Paektu, and the ideological mind-set of typical North Korean citizens.”  — G. Allen Johnson, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

AWARDS

Quote:

A State of Mind
by Ed Park
August 9th, 2005 11:08 AM

A State of Mind
Directed by Daniel Gordon

British director Daniel Gordon’s doc A State of Mind tracks two young gymnasts as they prep for the 2003 Mass Games, an enormous “socialist realism spectacle” dedicated to leader Kim Jong Il—who may or may not attend. The profiled tumblers, Pak Hyon Sun, 13, and her teammate Kim Song Yun, 11, are endearingly familiar—kvetching about family members, hogging food, playing hooky—which makes the de rigueur anti-American statements all the more chilling. (Even the nightly power failures are blamed on the U.S.)

The main event is the girls’ elaborate, bone-crunching, months-long rehearsal, done in the service of a patriotic epic (6,000 performers, 40 shows). There’s also breathtaking footage of that North Korean specialty, the stadium-placard mosaic; both large-scale productions have societal utility, subsuming the individual into a mass movement. By scoring some of the routines to vaguely techno, decidedly Western music, Gordon at times risks creating too slick a package—or is this simply the commercial half-life of propaganda?

The aftermath of the Korean War in the north is, to outsiders, both well-known and not known at all. With amazing access, Gordon captures the grand follies of the country’s juche (self-reliance) philosophy and mundane traces of paranoia, from towering statues (“We have so many heroes in this country it’s impossible to count them,” Pak says) to a kids’ cartoon in which militaristic squirrels plot an assassination. More valuable are the detailed portraits of the two girls’ families, with all their tensions and affections. (Kim’s father appears the sensitive intellectual, wondering in nonbelligerent tones about the just-begun war in Iraq.) The country’s woes aren’t papered over—an interview with Pak’s mom about the severe famine in the ’90s is touted as the first such account given to a Westerner—but one leaves the film with the Twilight Zone sense that the place isn’t quite the hellhole prior reports have suggested.

Quote:
Reviewed by Noel Murray
August 9th, 2005

The title of Daniel Gordon’s documentary A State Of Mind refers both to the will of two young North Korean gymnasts and to North Korea itself. Gordon first went there a few years ago to make the 2002 documentary The Game Of Their Lives, about the astonishing run of the North Korean soccer team in the 1966 World Cup competition, and the government trusted the British filmmaker enough to invite him back in 2003 to document the “Mass Games,” a synchronized athletic display that celebrates the subordination of the individual to the collective. Gordon records what it takes to get 13-year-old Pak Hyon Sun and 11-year-old Kim Song Yun ready for the pageant—namely, hour after hour of ritualistic training—while also covering what it’s like to live in a place where a “worker’s siren” blows at 7 a.m., and homes are outfitted with state-sponsored radio sets that can be turned down, but not off.

Gordon describes North Korea at the outset as “the least visited, least known, least understood country in the world,” but that’s a slight overstatement. The nation is more of an anachronism: the last of the sustainable socialist states. (Though with its rampant malnutrition and reliance on foreign aid, it may not be sustainable for long.) A State Of Mind enters the girls’ classrooms, where history gets broken down into a simple us-vs.-them story, with the “them” being American imperialists, and the “us” being a perfect nation led by Kim Jong Il, whose greatness is explained by a pie chart. A State Of Mind presents North Korea as a curious and contradictory culture, built on outraged victimhood—inspired by the American military actions of the Korean War—in concert with a desperately enforced idealism.

But most of that analysis is between the frames. Even though Gordon deploys the usual authoritarian British documentary style—complete with know-it-all narration—he avoids passing judgment. He’s clearly fascinated by the enthusiasm and dedication of his hosts, who need to believe that their leaders mean well. Unlike the athletes and artists of the former Soviet Bloc, these girls and their families aren’t cynics. A State Of Mind was beautifully shot and crisply edited to emphasize the Mass Games’ pageantry, but amid the synchronized blocks of performers, Gordon singles out the cranky coaches and giggling schoolgirls, subtly emphasizing how the individual endures even when she’s trying hard not to.

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Language(s):English
Subtitles:English.srt

The post Daniel Gordon – A State of Mind (2004) first appeared on Cinema of the World.