This film by woman film director Sung-Hyung Cho documents the journey of a South Korean who could enter North Korea only through her German passport. It starts with her taking pictures with women and men of The Army and the unspoilt beauty - lush mountains and lakes - all around North Korea.
She follows a local North Korean household - son who works in a swimming complex, daughter who does secret services for the Army and Grandma whose Father was killed in a war. We see how bikinis are not allowed in the public swimming pools with slides as such western ideologies corrupt the minds of the masses. News of the day is being read from a two page four sides newspapers mostly about praising the people for their productivity and pledging loyalty to the ruling political power. Son wanted to continue working for the Army but after repeated requests to study University he finally relented. The Grandma is a very strong woman who yearns for reunification and urges the director to speed up this process. The son hopes for change due to economic reasons and the Grandma because of political reasons.
Next she enters a garment making factory and interviews a young girl who is the "star" of the week. Motivated by a rewards and punishments system, they have a daily quota of 150-200 clothing's to make for export. This girl shares how she likes to work in a factory as it is a womanly skills like cooking and she aims to design and sew her own clothes in future. The factory's working hours are 8am - 6 (or was it 7pm), with a lunch break from 12-2pm and a dance routine in between work. It's a bit staged. The factory workers know the move by hard and just do this dance routine for a good 3 mins.
A scene in a nursery and kindergarten compares the differences between the all-praising of the political power among the kindergarten to the attempts to get the very blur-looking nursery children to enact the same praise actions.
In another scene we see the children in a sports school who live in boarding schools on site. It's sad. How can they not miss home? These primary school children. We happen upon a dorm where the teacher was invited to play musical instrument for the children because they wish to sing. For real?! There was pride when the teacher showed those foldable tables which save space.
Next we see a tractor farmer and his family- wife and eldest primary level daughter and lower primary son. It's a very simple family. Dad fell in love with driving the tractor when he was in the Army and requested to be a farmer. Wife fell in love with his willpower and they have two children. They eat a lot of rice for dinner and don't talk during dinner time. They have solar power to charge their electricity and TV. If there was enough electricity they'd watch color TV. Else it's black and white.
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