North Korea...the new Hollywood?

From Yahoo News, October 11 2005

Pusan, South Korea--North Korea is commonly portrayed as the world's bad guy in Hollywood, but the country's movie-buff leader Kim Jong-Il is striking back by opening up Pyongyang's film industry to foreign participation.

The policy is aimed at reviving the fortunes of the Stalinist state's once thriving movie business and will also enable North Korean films to reach overseas, according to Chinese filmmaker Piao Zun Xi, the director of the first foreign feature made in the reclusive country.

North Korea is willing to participate actively in co-production activities," Piao told a meeting at the Pusan International Film Festival in South Korea's southern Pusan city.

"Kim Jong-Il is well known to be an avid film lover. (North Korea) wants to learn from other countries what is going on in the film sector," he said.

"If such co-operation takes place there will a lot of interest worldwide and in Asia," he told the gathering of film industry professionals.

Piao, an ethnic Korean, has just finished making "The Secret of Rikidozan" about one of North Korea's most worshipped national heroes, champion professional wrestler Rikidozan.

"This is the first film co-operation between China and North Korea," said Piao, who shot the film entirely in North Korea with Chinese and North Korean stars.

Kim Hyung-Joon, president of the Korean Motion Picture Producers Association, said he was excited about the possibilities raised for joint Korean productions.

"It's like a dream come true. If there is that level of commitment it will be easier to go ahead with projects," he said.

Kim Hyung-Joon said he had also heard North Korea's Dear Leader was gathering 200 foreign films for screening to audiences there who are usually denied access to overseas culture.
Piao told the meeting Monday that the Stalinist nation approached him in May last year with a scenario for the film and asked him to direct, with the aid of Chinese financing. When he agreed, red tape was quickly cut away and filming began within months.

Editing finished last week and two versions will be released -- one for Chinese audiences and another in North Korea -- although their content would be substantially the same, he said.
The film also had a North Korean director of equal rank and Piao said the pair had "quarrels" but that such disagreements were inevitable in any international collaboration.

"There are bound to be differences of opinion. Because we were at the same level it was difficult to really agree," he said, adding that a compromise was found after negotiations.

Piao said overseas countries would need to understand North Korea before any co-production deals could be signed, but stressed that "understanding can only come through
acknowledgement and recognition".

North Korean cinema was very strong in the 1970s, churning out movies that were lapped up by entertainment-starved Chinese audiences during the Cultural Revolution, Piao said.

But famine and poverty led to the neglect of the industry which no longer had enough equipment to make international standard movies on its own, he said.

"But the locations are very pleasant," said Piao, who also praised the standard of North Korean actors as better than their Chinese counterparts.

North Korea has long been off the radar as a location for Western film-makers, although it has a digital animation industry that has worked on projects with South Korea.

North Korean propaganda proclaims Rikidozan as the world's greatest ever wrestler and his death in 1963 was surrounded by claims that he was murdered because he brought shame on America and Japan by beating their wrestlers.

The wrestler had become a hero in Japan, where he lived and fought, in the late 1950s and built up a business empire on the back of his fame.

He was stabbed in Tokyo one night in 1963, but despite his injuries not appearing life threatening he died a week later in hospital, inspiring theories he had been murdered by Japanese gangsters or US spies.

Countless books and documentaries have been made about Rikidozan in his native North Korea.