Why did they have to resort to kidnapping though? There's so many people that will do anything for money. I must be missing something about North Korea.
Other political crimes that I came to know of after I was incarcerated in the
prison camp.
“The crime of talking about a cyst/lump on Kim Il Sung‟s neck.”
“The crime of (unwittingly) damaging or soiling the statue or portrait of Kim Il Sung.”
“The crime of knowing about the private life of Kim Jong-il. For example, knowing
about Sung Hae Rim being the hidden mistress of Kim Jong-il, and disclosing this
information to an outsider.”
“The crime of revealing the birth of Kim Jong Nam, the firstborn son of Kim Jong-il”
“The crime of listening to or viewing foreign radio or TV.”
“The crime of questioning or criticizing the policy of the Worker‟s Party.”
“The crime of expressing criticism or complaints about North Korea society.”
At the time this movie was being made I don't think NK was any more sanctioned than any other Eastern Bloc country, and plenty of other Eastern Bloc countries had little issue scraping together enough cash to pay westerners to do stuff
> At the time this movie was being made I don't think NK was any more sanctioned than any other Eastern Bloc country
The U.S. “imposed sanctions in the 1950s and tightened them further after international bombings against South Korea by North Korean agents during the 1980s” [1]. And by the 80s, savvy Eastern Bloc countries could read the writing on the wall.
Nobody in the Eastern Bloc was trading with the US very much; I was thinking more about other countries. North Korea would have been relatively unfettered within the Eastern Bloc, for example, same as most communist nations.
Also, the director was kidnapped in 1978, so before those sanctions were tightened down in the 80s and well before any Eastern Bloc states could see any writing on the wall. I'd be curious how those restrictions compared to those the US had on most other communist nations.
> though Kim despised the Japanese, he set aside his pride and flew in the special-effects team of the original films, along with Kenpachiro Satsuma, the man inside the Godzilla suit. According to Satsuma, he and his crew members thought they had been hired for a film shooting in China when they landed in North Korea instead.
The production and release sections of the Wikipedia article are interesting. It was intended for wide release by a Japanese company, then banned by the NK government after the director fled. In the 90s it saw a wide release, even in South Korea. The then-escaped director tried to sue it off the air.
