Dictatorship, Paranoia, Famine: Welcome to North Korea! 

Why would anyone risk a trip to North Korea where one wrong move could get you in prison and tortured for years.

That woman directing imaginary traffic with precision as if any crashes were about to happen is one of the bizarre scenes of North Korean life I've ever seen.

The woman directing nonexistent traffic was so intensely fascinating

I love how the tourists came to a dictatorship and were shocked when they had to follow the same strict laws as the general populous.

Im gonna just say it: these tourist had me on edge the whole time. Be flippant, an asshole or careless with your words when you aren't visiting a totalatarian government. Trying to trick the guy at the end to go for a solitary walk would've gotten him in trouble. You may get to go home but the Korean people you encounter may face repercussions for your actions

“You can have fun with the slot machines, but there’s never any jackpot” Sooo incredibly dystopian.

Imagine knowing how strict the laws are. And the first thing you do is try to get a guide possibly a death penalty trying to leave a hotel when you know it’s illegal.

This is a prison not a country 😢

When you're having a bad time in life simply watch this kind of documentary to make yourself remember how good of a life you have still compared to this.

"The traffic lady in an empty intersection signaling like a puppet gone mad" i felt kind of sad for her.

13:47 "She was spoiling the scenery by being poor." That was both extremely amusing to hear and extremely depressing as well...

Its absolutely mind boggling these French tourist think they're having a tour of a cute, quaint little country almost the whole time... the gal of it all is incredible. "They're annoying me cus they keep deleting all my pictures! If they keep this up i won't tour this region again!" YOU'RE IN NORTH FUCKING KOREA, MY GUY

That entire school segment filled me with sadness more than anything else. The best thing about kids is that they are genuine, and to see them forced to keep up appearances at such a young age is very hard to see.

Am I the only one to have seen and heard all of the North Korean documentaries and use them for sleep?

It's like a movie - "The Truman Show", cameras, extras, scenery for foreigners, just a show. We created an experiment, divided the country into 2 parts, in one there is a totalitarian regime and everything is prohibited, in the other part there is everything: goods, infrastructure, Internet, television, in a word, civilization and those in power have been watching this experiment for decades, how people develop and adapt in two ways of life development...

Heard from former citizens of the USSR (Vee, Vladimir Jaffe, Oleg Atbashian, all of them speak english and have an internet presence). The official narrative spread by the regime was that as bad as the soviet citizens had it, they're conditioned to believe it's heaven compared to what westerners had. This view started changing when western products and media were smuggled into the USSR. Even Nikita Kruschev himself was baffled to visit a western convenience store and see there wasn't a shortage of anything during an official trip to the US. This episode, some scholars believe, was the beggining of the end for the USSR. That simple trip to a random convenience store Kruschev picked himself on a whim chipped the bellief in socialism on the very highest echelon of soviet government. Because back then socialism wasn't a gimmick to rule over people like a feudal lord. Kruschev really was a sincere, honest and just man. He used to visit random stores and factories all the time back in the USSR. He really did believe in socialism making peole's lives better, he just had never been shown an undistorted alternative. Them came Gorbachev with his Perestroika and Glasnost. They no longer would punish people for complaining about the government, which snowballed into the collapse of the USSR because it turned out people had A LOT to complain about. The evil versions of Taiwan and Korea learned the most out of the collapse of the USSR. While we're still discussing what really happened, they took action to guarantee it wouldn't hapen to their castle of cards, at least not so soon. That is why those regimes are so opressive and censorious. They really must mantain this façade that they have it better and the outside is a barren wasteland, somehow. China has opted for racial superiority of the Han chinese in lieu of their global reach that allows peole to see the truth about communism with their own eyes, but that's beside the point. For the Juche ideology, going to another country for leisure is literally unthinkable. They don't think of the tourists as some curious middle class people able to take a trip most french people could. They either think you're some very rich capitalists or someone a rich capitalist favors so much you have money to blow on the trip. I'm seeing the revolution brewing in the chinese people with their economy showing cracks, the government induced rally of the chinese stock market, the collapse of Evergrande, the Let it Rot movement, youth unemployment and their increased hostility towards western companies. North Korea will still be North Korea when the CCP finally collapses, they will certainly outlast the regime that supports them to use north koreans as cannon fodder in a war exactly because the Kim regime keeps a much tighter grip on its people. Socialism was predicted to be impossible in the 1930s already by L. v. Mises. But the giant bronze statues make the problem clear (there's a Kim-Jong-Ill statue too now. This doc is kinda old). It's an ego problem. Endemic to modern leftists in general, not just the leaders or people with any kind of power. They would literally let millions starve to death before admitting they might have been wrong. North Korea has recently given up on the whole "reunification" thing. Though the current Kim has said it in a way he would start a war for that given the oportunity, it was just a way to save face while admitting NK can't compete with the South militarily. This could pave a way to peace. South korean media has been penetrating the northern people and shattering the regime's illusions little by little through baloons and airwaves just as western smuggled media did with the USSR back in the day. But let's not ignore the prime directive of the Kim's regime. The same of the Castros, Mugabes, Pots, Husseins, Assads and etc around the world: Keep themselves in power.

I am a doctor and was sent to NK for a year with Doctors Without Borders The worst country and experience ever. I was afraid all the time because i feared doing something “ wrong “ I stuck it out but NEVER again…

Three things saddened me in this video: the children, the woman who regulates traffic, and the people locked inside the village

Holy Moly great documentary... it is really scary. How did he manage to make the video and not having it deleted?

Question, If they were deleting regular pictures how were you able to get this film out without being suspect?

The most ironic part of these videos is that North Korea always talks about how horrible the US and west are, yet puts so much effort into putting on a great show for them

Those tourists didn’t even realise they were risking their guide’s lives by attempting to defy their rules. If I ever travel to NK, I will obey everything they tell me because I could not live with myself if a guide was executed because I chose to be a rebel

I can't get over how stereotypically dystopian they are. It feels like a joke until you remember that people suffer through this system every day. Then it just becomes pathetic.

the woman directing non existent traffic is so eerie

The fact that they managed to get this much footage out is probably why things are extra strict now

It's so unfair to put the "guides" in such compromising situations by trying to do things which are forbidden. I really don't understand why anyone would do this.

I honestly feel so bad for the people that live there. Every time a foreigner comes around they have to make sure they look happy and put on a great show. I always think about the foreigners coming home and then showing pictures and videos that the handlers didn’t know about . They might end up getting those people killed with your views of N.K. and photos and videos. Should not have taken pictures and said the names of the guides. I pray that they are ok and that N.K. Knows real freedom soon.

Erné seemed a little too happy to be there

I lost it, when she was so seriously directing nonexistent traffic and a little old man/woman walked by pushing a trash can!

Two things in this documentary really struck me. Despite all the attempts of North Korea to look perfect they’re still hopelessly outdated a don’t seem to know it. And the naïve nature of the tourists who tried to slip the minders to see normal civilians. It was never going to be possible given how everything is staged.

las personas de corea del norte viven en un país totalmente simulado, literalmente viven en otra época, en los años 50s, su vestimenta, los artefactos antiguos, el transporte, qué impactante y triste a la vez que para los norcoreanos esto es totalmente normal, ya que no conocen otra realidad más que esa, no se dan cuenta de lo infelices que viven y de la dictadura en la que están. Por mi parte, de solo ver este documental me deprimí mucho ver todo esto jajaja

이 영상들은 나라가 둘로 나뉘고 하나는 공산주의를, 다른 하나는 자본주의를 세웠다는 "만약에" 시나리오를 드문 예로 보여줍니다. 하나는 감옥 같고, 다른 하나는 원하는 사람에게 자유와 번영을 제공하는 번창하는 경제입니다

I felt sorry for the woman giving the museum tour. She looked sad and scared. Knowing it felt like lies but knowing also she had to do what she'd been told. I pray for these people

I like how finally one of the guides at the end was all "Look they'll kill me so please just chill out"

The conduct of these people are foolish, putting themselves and their guides at risk. And that Jaqueline(?) -- saying how it's - essentially - a "thrilling little novelty" (paraphrasing, of course) to bow to an actual dictator. However, when asked if she'd bow to her home country's political figure? Perish the thought. They always want to bow to the ones that have absolute control. Insufferable.

Whatever the politics heading for, people should have their basic rights to live freely, that's what is called civilization.

The scene with the old woman polishing rocks made me sad... She smiles cheerfully at the guide, the guide tells her something, then her smile immediately drops and her gaze falls on the camera. 😥

I hope maybe in my lifetime I’ll see the liberation of the NK People. Keeping up the facade of everything being fine is heartbreaking. The guides knowing damn well that 60% of the people live in abject poverty. The unfortunate reality is that bloodshed is almost certain. The regime will not go down without a fight.

This is the most “free view” of N Korea I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe you got all of this out of there.

"Get out of my scene, you're being too poor."

A North Korean fisherman while out at sea heard South Korean radio program broadcast and in the radio program a character was having a conversation with another character about why they were late and said because "all of the vehicle parking places were taken" so she had to drive further away to finally find a place to park their car. The Sailor laughed at what he thought was silly South Korean propaganda. But he went home and that thought tumbled around in his head and the next few times he went out to sea he would listen to the radio broadcast and eventually something made him think that it might really be true that there could be a place in the world where they had so many cars that they had no place to park them. So eventually he wanted to find out and he defected taking his boat to South Korea.

Everything in NK is so sterile, desolate, and depressing. The entire country reeks of dispair.

Why NK would be considered a vacation?? I don’t understand.

What is the music? Shazam can't recognize it, can't find :(

Impressive spoken French by some of them! Having citizens learn fluency in major international languages definitely makes sense for this regime, especially when offering tours. I honestly laughed when the guy near the end casually told the French tourist "je connais ton truc" ("I know what you're up to") after he tried to trick him.

The fact these ppl risked their lives to give us this is just fascinating

That image of the woman directing non-existent traffic creeps me out for as innocuous as it seems.

That background music in the morning is BLEAK.

To pay to go on vacation at a country that is a prison is a bit insane. I feel bad for the people who live without freedom.

Whoever filmed all this is so freaking brave

The person filming was very courageous. Even if the consequences for their minders to have the footage smuggled out of the country under their watch is probably severe, the world needed to see this. I hope they are ok, even the secret service 'tour guides'.

Those French Tourist are not bright....lol

A friend of mine in Australia was, a number of years ago, involved in EU aid programs in North Korea. He described how he travelled everywhere with an official "guide" who just followed him around and made sure he only went where the government wanted him to. In every town he stayed in there was a single restaurant for officials and high ranking party members only. The food was plentiful in these restaurants and usually wasn't bad. As a "guest" of the government, he was compelled to eat in the towns party restaurant each night. My friend said that his guide, invariably a low ranking secret police employee, just loved going out to the restaurant each night. He would just eat until he nearly burst. It was quite a fringe benefit for a low ranking party official, like the guide, to eat in a high ranking party restaurant. He was going to make the most of it while it lasted.

I remember reading somewhere that it isn't the punishment that is so terrifying, but the threat of punishment that terrifies people. So, when tourists misbehave and are disrespectful, the guides really do fear for their lives, and also fear the ''loss of face.''

If the museum guide says the wrong answers she's done

What I want to say is that the videographers were too arrogant. It was a good thing that they tried to explore, but they made things difficult for the staff and did not provide post-technical processing for the staff to protect them. Many ordinary North Koreans are powerless with their lives. The staff that these tourists can encounter can only do things according to the procedures. The consequence of not complying is death.The behavior of the visitors is really embarrassing for these ordinary people. They have no way and cannot give the "democratic answer" that the video shooter hopes to see.

33:00 ive worked 6 years in a kindergarten in China. And the differences are insane. Every single facial expression of these kids in North Korea, is completely and utterly orchestrated and trained in, nothing is natural child emotions. I can spot this from a mile away. And the teacher too, each smile is fake.. Anyone that has worked with kids can see this. It's astonishingly sad, that even from the age of 3, they are growing up never having seen, or themselves expressing, real genuine external emotions. So how was it in China? The same as in the West, frankly, genuine happy playing kids, goofing off, teasing each other, hugging the teacher, good quality teachers that genuinely cared for the kids. They were obviously way more diciplined kids, but mostly in a good way. The fair but firm mentality. But when i look at every face in this video, not a single one of the kids are showing genuine emotion. Perhaps they never learnt how to, since all their teachers also only show them fake smiles. This is a huge issue for their future development as emotional real human beings. It's the equivalent of being raised by sociopaths in a basement with no connection to anyone real.

Freaking depressing how everything is controlled.

At the 13:48 mark when the guide walks over to talk to the older woman, I wonder if the guide is a family member whom the employee is allowed to have them come in and do that work. The smile on her face and warmth in her eyes as she looks up, they obviously have a close relationship and the guide wasn't being rude, you can see they point behind them subtly and she understands and quickly gets up and leaves.

The school scene is heartbreaking. It is painfully clear they are taught from the get-go to obey, impress their leader, to invade and survive in other countries. You wouldn't find that sort of thing anywhere else in the world.

This tour took place in 2010 for those like me who were wondering.

That last part trying to get around where you're not allowed really irritated me.. You might not get into trouble but there could be a serious risk to the guides or other innocent citizens.. Kinda looked stupid trying to sneak into restricted areas..

The line that hit me the most is "The woman is directing nonexistent traffic; the movements those of a puppet gone mad".

It really annoys me when people visit North Korea and try and out the workers in situations where they will be punished ! Completely unfair! I understand if this doesn’t happen we wouldn’t know all of this but my heart really goes out to them

The scenes immediately after the sunrise at 23:00 onwards were like something out of a nightmare! I feel so sorry for these unlucky people, they don't deserve to live in a horrible hellhole. At least the rural folk get to live amidst natural scenery, they have the Earth if anything...

The traffic lady: Where is the traffic she is guiding.. doesn't make sense?

Can you imagine being upset that you can't buy or see an embroiderer that's probably child or a person forced into horrible working conditions. The Frenchman saying that dictatorships are "clearner" "no homeless" yea because they all die and starve together

Don’t forget, Pyongyang, as desolate as it is with no cars and buses that look like they’re falling apart, is the most privileged of North Korean society. Their most privileged live worse than the poorest of the west

I love this commentators voice.

They say this president does horrible things to children! Sad

What a nightmare, my heart goes out to their people. I hope they can see freedom in the future.

My anxiety was off of the scale watching this documentary. All of the money in the world couldn't convince me to visit that country. It's heartbreaking and terrifying.

I wonder what would happen if you went to the war museum just, gung-ho, full chest “yeah America is terrible, you guys did an amazing job”, whistling at all the vehicles and saying “what a beaut!”, stuff like that. Just showing awe and amazement that you even get to be in the same room as some of this stuff.

saw a documentary some years ago about 'doctors without borders' (or a similar organization) - who had arranged for a group of ophthalmologists to go into NK to help people suffering from major vision loss due to cataracts and other degenerative eye conditions that had gone untreated for many years - some of these people were nearly completely blind and in most cases the surgeons were able to restore their eyesight - and as you would expect these people were emotionally overwhelmed once they could see again - and they gave tremendous thanks - but not to the surgeons - they effusively declared their love and gratefulness to "dear leader" (Kim Jong-un - or maybe at that time his father Kim Jong-il ) - but they barely acknowledged the doctors & nurses who had actually restored their vision - and you got the distinct impression that it was out of absolute fear that they were doing this - fear that if they gave thanks to anyone other than their "dear leader" - they would be severely punished ..

I can't believe they even tried to just go out for a stroll at 10pm, then proceeded to ignore the porter the first time when he asked them to go back in. Seemed like a great way to ens up like Otto. Idiots.

What they fail to mention with Korea's history was that in the 50s the South even though democratic was actually under a dictator itself. During that time people were resigned to the fact they will have to follow some ideology and the North was prospering more than the South hence what drew most Koreans too. Only towards late 50s to early 60s was there a shift and by then the North Koreans were already prisoners.

4:33 " Smiles are mandatory"😮 Worst case scenario

The amount of sarcasm in this documentary is amazing, and the delivery of these sarcastic lines from the commentator is… is top-tier👌🏾👌🏾👌🏾

It’s like the Truman show

48:20 I’d bet a hundred dollars that those, “electrified fences” aren’t even electrified. I mean how can they not have money to feed their people, but yet money to spend on useless electric fences. I mean I bet most the time those fences are turned off.

That poor woman polishing rocks. They chased her off. I almost cried.

"You didn't follow up the question, did you? You were scared." "I just didn't have the courage to" I dont blame you,mate. Infact, kudos for even venturing into North Korea. I dont have the balls to!

The voiceover on this film is absolutely incredible! Informative, sarcastic and hilarious in equal measure. I am not sure if it was intentional but it is utterly brilliant 😀

The tour guide was a hot.

when was it filmed? 80s?

The two things that made me shake my head: the lady directing imaginary traffic and the fact that people actually got on that scary plane to go to the north

While I understand there is some desire to ask 'politically charged' questions, there's little point in harassing the tour guide. She's just doing her job, and it's not fair to harass her over something she has NO control over and probably has no awareness of anything that she hasn't been brainwashed into believing.

27:20 are there not 2 big statues and not only one?

I feel a bit lucky that even though I live in a communist country, at least I still have the same democratic rights compared to other countries, unlike North Korea.

That little 5 year old looking kid violinist at 36:40 and 5 year old pianist a bit later were freaking incredible. It makes me sad that he and she have those skills and they won’t be able to share them with the world, have to be told what to play, can’t compose or collaborate with others, etc. Very gifted children.

As harsh as this is it's really interesting how one man can hold so much power over a whole nation. It's like jail but for a whole country.

Good job thanks for the video 😊

街並みは古いが綺麗、ゴミ一つない 目立った犯罪もなさそうだし通行人も気さくな感じ 子供たちは笑顔にあふれ、活気がある ホテルも清潔だし出される食い物もちゃんとしてる なのにまったく幸せそうに感じない、不気味な雰囲気が漂う恐ろしい空間だわ

18:27 The Victorious War Museum in Pyongyang, North Korea, has several exhibits that claim the Baltimore was sunk by motor torpedo boats belonging to the Korean People's Navy in the Korean War during the Battle of Chumonchin Chan on 2 July 1950. However, the ship was in the U.S. Navy's decommissioned reserve from 1946 to 1951 before being recommissioned and assigned to the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. Baltimore did not return to the Far East until 1955, when she was transferred to the U.S. Pacific Fleet two years after the end of the Korean War. The actual battle involved the U.S. Navy light cruiser USS Juneau and the Royal Navy sloop HMS Black Swan and light cruiser HMS Jamaica. Together they destroyed several North Korean motor torpedo boats without loss or damage to themselves. Nonetheless, in 2023 North Korea named a North Korean People's Navy Sinpo-C class submarine Hero Kim Kun Ok after the North Korean naval leader who claimed to have sunk Baltimore on 2 July 1950.

Me trying to figure out how was he recording all of this !

Fun fact- the USS Baltimore was never sunk and didn't even serve in the Korean war, it spent the entire duration of the Korean war in service in the US Atlantic Fleet and was only moved to the Pacific fleet again in 1955. The actual battle the tour guide is referring to involved the USS Junea, HMS Jamaica and HMS Black Swan where they sank several north korean torpedo boats for no damage and loss of life

What a nightmare... It's amazing how the military themselves don't rebel en masse!

It's fuckin' wild that I'd rather live in modern day Afghanistan, even under Taliban control, than North Korea.

The guide looks like Albert Wesker from Residant Evil.

The most surreal image is the police woman directing nonexistent traffic and moving like an automatic.