Tag: The Interview

“The Interview” Has Been Released in North Korea

| April 14, 2015

This wasn’t the typical way to premiere a film in a new country, but for North Korea this will have to do:

north korea balloon image

“The Interview” is headed to North Korea, but don’t expect it in Pyongyang theaters anytime soon.

CNN has reported that North Korean defector Lee Min-bok has been launching balloons filled with DVDs of the Hollywood comedy toward the Demilitarized Zone.

Lee described the movie as vulgar and not particularly funny. However, its cinematic quality isn’t the point, Lee told CNN.

“The regime hates this film because it shows Kim Jong-un as a man, not a god,” Lee said to CNN. “He cries and is afraid like us and then he’s assassinated.”

Lee launched the most recent batch of 80,000 DVDs, dollar bills and political leaflets – his fourth such launch – in the middle of the night Saturday near the Korean border, after checking wind speed and direction.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but previously North Korea has made a number of threats against refugee activists to try and stop them from launching these balloons.

North Korea Vows to Kill Human Rights Activist

| January 12, 2015

This isn’t the first or will be the last of the assassination threats that North Korea has made against balloon activist Park Sang-hak:

north korea balloon image

North Korea issued a death threat against a defector-turned-activist after he announced a plan to send copies of a satirical Hollywood film about a plot to kill Kim Jong-un into North Korea.

The South Korean government said Thursday it will take necessary measures to protect its citizens.

Last week, Park Sang-hak, who heads the Fighters for a Free North Korea, said he planned to send 100,000 DVDs and USB memory sticks containing the movie “The Interview” via balloons across the border into North Korea to destroy the personality cult build around Kim Jong-un.

He said the Sony Pictures’ movie will have Korean subtitles and he will start sending the balloons as early as late January.

According to the Ministry of Unification, the North aired an ultimatum against Park on Wednesday. Using extremely cruel language, the North’s Pyongyang Broadcasting Station said Park must “go to hell.”

It promised to “bleed him out and gut his intestines.”

“In order to end this tragic reality of national division forced upon our people and homeland by outside forces, we must ruthlessly eliminate those maniacs who encourage inter-Korean confrontations,” the broadcast said. “And the Korean people select Park as the first target.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but hopefully Park Sang-hak has taken the appropriate security measures to protect himself from North Korean assassins.  Back in 2011 a North Korean assassin was arrested before he could carry out his plot to kill Park with poison needles.

Activist to Drop Copies of “The Interview” Over North Korea By Balloon

| January 2, 2015

ROK Drop favorite Park Sang-hak is living up to his word and has decided to drop “The Interview” over North Korea via balloon:

North Korean defector Park Sang Hak stands with activists who plan to send anti-North Korea leaflets during a rally near the Imjingak Pavilion near the border village of Panmunjom, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2014. North Korea opened fire on Oct. 10 after activists floated propaganda balloons across the border, following through on a previous threat to attack. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A South Korean activist said Wednesday that he will launch balloons carrying DVDs of Sony’s “The Interview” toward North Korea to try to break down a personality cult built around dictator Kim Jong Un.

The comedy depicting an assassination attempt on Kim is at the center of tension between North Korea and the U.S., with Washington blaming Pyongyang for crippling hacking attacks on Sony Entertainment. Pyongyang denies that and has vowed to retaliate.

Activist Park Sang-hak said he will start dropping 100,000 DVDs and USBs with the movie by balloon in North Korea as early as late January. Park, a North Korean defector, said he’s partnering with the U.S.-based non-profit Human Rights Foundation, which is financing the making of the DVDs and USB memory sticks of the movie with Korean subtitles.

Park said foundation officials plan to visit South Korea around Jan. 20 to hand over the DVDs and USBs, and that he and the officials will then try to float the first batch of the balloons if weather conditions allow.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but I guess we will see if North Korea tries to send out their leftist allies in South Korea to try and stop this balloon launch later in the month.

Sony’s “The Interview” is Released and Critics are Not Impressed

| December 27, 2014

The highly controversial movie “The Interview” was released yesterday despite threats from North Korean sponsored hackers and that means more reviews of the movie are in.  Like some of the initial screening reviews I read these reviews are not good either:

The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy calls it “an intensely sophomoric and rampantly uneven comic takedown of an easy but worrisomely unpredictable target, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. In the relatively sparse annals of irreverent major studio comedies that pissed off foreign nations, for big laughs this one doesn’t rate anywhere near Borat or Team America: World Police. … As political satire goes, The Interview has the comic batting average of a mediocre-to-average Saturday Night Live sketch, with a few potent laughs erupting from an overall mash of sex, drugs and TV broadcasting jokes that feel rooted in a sense of humor primarily characterized by a frat-boy/altered state/prolonged adolescence mind-set.”

Additionally, “if you set up as provocative a premise as do the makers of The Interview, you ultimately have to deal with all its implications; let’s just say that what concludes the film is rote action, simplistic wish-fulfillment stuff that feels cheap and naive and more concerned with looking coolly kick-ass than with any real-world consequences. Even if one part of the film is sincere in wanting to highlight North Korea’s negatives (famine, ideological orthodoxy, cult of personality, militarism, nuclear brinkmanship, et al.), the larger part is devoted to very Western-style sexual grossness, deterministic outrageousness, self-satisfied obliviousness and contended immaturity.” Alongside Franco and Rogen, “Park brings great energy and enthusiasm to his tricky job of portraying the world’s least known big-deal ruler — there are even scenes of him getting the famous Kim haircut and selecting a suit from a closet full of identical ones.”  [The Hollywood Reporter]

You can read more reviews at the link, but this movie appears to be pretty horrible.  I think I will pass on watching it even if it is supposed to be my patriotic duty now to do so.  Has any ROK Heads seen this film and can verify how bad it is?