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In October 2010, the world media reported that something unusual had happened in North Korea: the main (and for most North Koreans the only) TV channel had shown a British movie on prime time. This movie was none "Bend it like Beckham," a light-hearted comedy about an Indian girl who wants to play football.
The movie was rather heavily censored, but this somewhat unusual showing has been nonetheless presented as a breakthrough. It was said to be the first time a that a Western movie had been shown on North Korean TV, although this was not the case. In the late 1980s, films of Western origin were occasionally shown on North Korean TV.
However, apart from the Western films ― which are very rare indeed ― some other foreign movies are shown on North Korean TV. According to the estimates from 2009 to 2012, North Korean Central Television broadcast 219 foreign movies and foreign TV shows. However, with the sole exception of ''Bend it like Beckham," all these shows and films were Chinese or Russian (usually from the Soviet era, because of ideological considerations).
These movies are very popular with North Koreans, who favorably compare the content with native productions. The latter are known for their overt ideological messages, shallow characters, implausible stories and plain dullness. However, most Chinese and Soviet productions that have been broadcast have clearly been selected for their positive ideological content.
For example, in 2010-12, North Korean viewers were treated to lengthy biopics (in more than 30 parts) of Mao Anying ― son of Mao ''the Great helmsmen" Zedong. The son of the long-time Chinese dictator is an important political symbol because he was killed during the Korean War. There were also several Chinese films that retold stories about the selflessness, patriotism, humanity and other laudable qualities of communist soldiers and guerillas in the 1930s and 1940s.
That said, not all Chinese productions were ideological. For example, in 2010, North Korean TV broadcast a Hong Kong thriller including martial arts scenes and chases. Technically, it was still a Chinese movie, but …
And in 2011 North Korean viewers were treated to a film about Zheng Chenggong, the Chinese general who in the late 17th century conquered Taiwan (the connotations of this character are all too obvious). The movie itself is a costume period piece, but much attention was paid to a particular scene in which a major female character was depicted in the bath with implied nudity. This episode has been presented as the first time nudity has been broadcast in the North.
However, as Tatiana Gabroussenko, a lifelong scholar of North Korean movies, informed me, it actually had a precursor: in a 2006 North Korean movie, one of the bad guys was depicted looking at a rather voluptuous picture. Admittedly, the camera lingered a bit excessively on this particular picture, which showed naked breasts.
Soviet TV series to appear on North Korean TV include "How the Steel was tempered," a Stalinist classic of the 1930s that depicts the boundless loyalty of revolutionary youth to the party and its cause. The film is set during the revolution and civil war in Russia, in the late 1910s and 1920s. Another Soviet TV series was different, though though: the ''Seventeen Moments of Spring," a Soviet era spy thriller, whose major character is an SS officer (actually, a lifelong Soviet agent) operating in 1945 Berlin.
This series has been popular in both Russia and predictably North Korea. This is understandable: while the political message appears to be orthodox enough, its characters including the bad guys (Nazi officers) are depicted as humans, neither perfectly good nor evil. Even in the Soviet Union of 1970s, far more liberal than North Korea has ever been, ideological watchdogs criticized this show for humanizing the Nazi enemy excessively.
There was also a light Soviet comedy from the 1980s, "Presents by Phone." No nudity is to be found in this movie, but it included pictures from late Soviet nightclubs that appear positively decadent to North Korean viewers.
At any rate, few would dispute that North Korea would easily win the title for the world's most boring TV. Nonetheless, as we have seen, there are some minor deviations from standard operating procedure, and as time passes, such deviations seem to be increasing in number and in severity.
Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. You can reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
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