While serving as a journalist in World War 2 for the Imperial Army of Japan, "Takahashi Minoru" (Pak Ki Ju) sees first-hand the impact on Koreans who have had their national identity forcibly taken from them by the Japanese occupation of their country. It's at this time that he adopts a mantra of viewing an incident before writing a newspaper editorial on it. Several years later he once again visits Korea as a war correspondent during the Korean War and takes home with him several more memories that have a great effect upon him as well. Years later he becomes a respected writer and while giving a speech on the Juche system has his perspective challenged by a young man in the auditorium. Having never seen North Korea he realizes that in order to meet his own high standard of journalism he must travel there and see for himself whether his opinion is valid or not. As it so happens the person put in charge of his tour is an old acquaintance he doesn't recognize named "Ryu Chon Song" (Kim Ryang Rim) who taught him the lesson which changed his life and who is about to teach him many more. Now rather than reveal the rest of this movie I will just say that-like apparently all movies from North Korea-this film is rife with propaganda. However, I believe that if a person is able to discount the obvious falsehoods perpetrated by the totalitarian regime in power then they might also witness a rather beautiful film in the process. Simply put, North Korea is not Shangri-La. However, it's nice to imagine a society with a wise and benevolent leader who actually has the trust of his people and truly cares about them. Sadly, this never was the case and consequently North Korea is not a Utopian society. Quite the opposite. Even so, it's great to imagine what it would be like if it were and that's the underlying beauty of this film. Unfortunately, the heavy amount of propaganda and the actual ugliness of the brutal regime that exists there serves to lessen the overall quality of the movie and diminishes what could have been a truly outstanding film. I have rated it accordingly.
