Vice Guide to Travel - North Korea - Complete Documentary

dun dun dun dun dun tango agent Doggett right after we launched VBS people started saying North Korea you know why don't you go to North Korea why because nobody knows anything about North Korea so we were fascinated by it and we tried to get in for a year and a half but couldn't because North Korea doesn't let anyone in they do not want anyone to corrupt their 100% homogeneous society that is 100% ruled by one person considering in the end we just got so frustrated that we ended up flying to South Korea and saying well at least we can go to the DMZ and sort of put our foot into North Korea and and sort of at least see a little bit of it from the South let's go see the DMZ which is a demilitarized zone which is the border between North Korea and South Korea since the Korean War ended it's been the most militarized zone on earth with two million estimated troops on the North Korean side about 500 thousand on the South Korean side missiles pointed at each other artillery tanks there's 3 million mines on the border itself in fact there's so many mines that the North Koreans built invasion tunnels where they went 70 meters down and they're like we can be in in Seoul in an hour and a half now the CIA and the American army have found a number of these but they think that there's even more it's been called the end of the world and it's the closest you can get to seeing North Korea getting to the DMZ isn't easy it's only an hour and a half north of Seoul but you have to go through about 15 checkpoints then you have to go through a United Nations sort of indoctrination session where they're like don't point don't look at them condone take any pictures don't do anything we're only gonna be there for two and a half minutes so we're at the last stop in South Korea before going to the DMZ this here is freedom bridge but after the Korean War is the last time the North and South exchange POWs and on the other side of that now a little further back is North Korea right here it's kind of like a theme park but as you see like just beyond the theme park kind of hidden by the trees there's barbed wire and landmines and checkpoints everywhere so it's kind of a very bizarre theme party it's a lot of families come when they put up messages or players for their family in the north the pavement split and never allowed to see it so they all come here and make a pilgrimage and say okay this is what I'm going to put up I'm going to put up some golf balls huh I think the South should lose pretty damn quick they're gonna be sort of rape soldiers brought up on PlayStation versus the North Korean sweet grass and sleep with their a cave we want to checkpoint charlie this is one of those dangerous places in the world ready to come over here and so you get off the bus and you look across and there's North Korea like that's North Korea get back on the bus you know if you could start World War three they'd really get you terrified they let you into one barracks room and the barracks room is half in North Korea half in South Korea and they set that up so that they could have talks but it's the only place where you can go and actually set foot technically into North Korea and this is as close as 99.9 percent of the people in the world will ever get to getting into North Korea and people are like so that that piece of concrete like walk you through the gravel in South Palm Pre is north know what all right right more like dude we have to get into North Korea we have to get in if the enemy best invade the land the Korea even a huge the revolution Armed Forces the career where the whole country has been turned into an impregnable fortress and the whole people have been equipped with armies will smite aggressors merciless North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction states like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil arming to threaten the Peace of the world the United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons we couldn't get in we tried to the embassy through press through Swedish embassy British Embassy Canadian Embassy German Embassy and I was saying to myself what in God's name so we were interviewing North Korean refugees in South Korea and a few of them had said just go to Shing Yang and bribed the the consulate there that's what everybody else does so we were in South Korean we said why not we're here so we flew up to the to China we had nothing to lose and we met the Consul in Xianyang hey des see a visa fee and we left our passports there and in fact most of our money and we went back to this North Korean hotel we had to stay in one of their hotels in northern China and we were supposed to hear back and have for the next afternoon at 6:00 in the morning there's a banging on our door and we wake up all discombobulated and they're like we have to go now here's your passport let's go or die where are we going where are we going and they don't give me any time to react not one second they take you right out from the room at 6:00 in the morning get you on the plane you're not allowed to bring anything into North Korea you can't bring a cellphone you can't bring a computer you can't bring any printed material any music they don't want you to have anything that you can even leave that in fact they don't want you to bring any type of camera in that is too sophisticated no telephoto lenses nothing you can bring basically a point-and-shoot that's it in fact when you go in you have to sign a thing saying I'm not bringing in anything and let me tell you if they find out that you did you're in the Duke [ __ ] and then you're flying from shinyang to being in North Korea and you go holy [ __ ] we're going to North Korea and with the express purpose of shooting that you're not allowed to do with the express purpose of making a documentary which you're not allowed to do this is terrifying so from the first minute I got there I was [ __ ] scared the monumental structures built in pinyin sing the praises of Kim Jong Il who made unremitting efforts earlier construction the new appearance of Pyongyang will hand down to posterity the fact that Kim jong-il is a genius of creation who actually in the heyday of construction in this land first sighted we're in a hotel that's about 47 stories tall nobody's in it there's only one fall with any people on right in the hotel room and that might be right off hello whoa wait okay we're here right after we get there we were taken for our first meal and the first time you eat in North Korea it's kind of a sign of the very weird things to come when the big banker as you can see it's huge there's about 20 women we're getting ready for dinner first of all they give you about three or four courses of absolutely inedible food it's just matter it's like fried matter and you're kind of going yeah yeah but you're waiting for everyone to fill in when's this banquet happening when's the baguette there is no banquet where is everyone it's not very busy here you realize they've gotten so much bad Prats for not having food that they want to show oh there's plenty of food food everywhere and they're carefully laying out the food the whole time you're eating and then you as you're leaving you notice they're pulling all the things that just carefully laid into little tiny trays that are carefully gonna bring back and keep for the next day and you're just sitting there by yourself eating your matter going okay I've come to crazy land for the defense of the country and peepers happenes whenever the US imperialists resorted to high handedness with regard to Korea they put him to shame displaying the wisdom and mettle of an iron wielder commander the Korean People's Army displays its invincible power it's really great and have you do the outside I'm gonna go downstairs uh to meet our guards in 15 minutes it's maybe the weirdest I've ever smoked like the first thing you realize in North Korea is you're not a tourist you're on a tour you come in you're shown what you're shown you're escorted out you're escorted the whole time you're never allowed on your own you can't leave the hotel which is on an island until your guards come and get you you have a guard and guide and secret police the first place they take you this to the Pueblo which is an American spy ship that they captured in the 60s during the Cold War and adopted in downtown pinging and the indoctrination starts they disguised addition as a civil war in research ship and they intruded into our waters in 1968 but captured by they force you to sit there and watch this sort of indoctrination video about how the American imperialists are terrible and they're [ __ ] on the peace-loving people of North Korea and look how terrible America is look how terrible Japan is and how we got their ship and it shows that they were spying on us and how evil they are really incredibly anti American fortunes for people to strike against within the committee People's Republic resorting to act a pest emerge on the land in the sky and undeceive this is pebble under spaceship of the u.s. imperialist aggression forces captured a layer of cement on January 23rd 1968 these are the cumin of pelo they were a degree in putting six officers but one of them was killed at the time of capture as they attempted to resist these holes were made by spinning to serve a shelf on our ship so one of the u.s. still so the red tape record here but you killed by splinters of the shell so when we captured this ship our seventh searching team jumped on this ship so edit moments the captain was sitting on this seat so he was bending his back Plato's past above his head so he was very lucky this is very tricky I'm wait here there's a big poster that says way to pieces on the point of a bayonet and you know all the North Koreans are brought here so you're sort of sitting there as the only Caucasian going oh goodness everyone's staring at you with daggers and you're just saying they're going ok great I get it this is what's gonna be a lot more than just talk about how bad we are the familiar said past a sense of a blur isn't the tremor a witness of history and poppy will testify century after century the currents of aggression committed by the US imperialists began to Korean people Kim Jong Il devote its tremors efforts to stepping up socialist economic construction it teaches the leading officials that motivating the people's ideas is the key to making innovation and that a creative enthusiasm of the message through kata to the untapped resources for increased production so every day around 6:30 in the morning our guides and our guards have come to pick us up and put us in a truck drive us out to some monument and you drive for like two hours and the first thing you notice are there's no cars the villages have no electricity there's no nothing nothing's happening anywhere going down south from me again as you can see there's nobody on the roads at all those no cars on the roads we're at a tea shop right now and as you can see I'm the only guy here we're just sort of driving on lonely roads and he throws and there'd be the tea girl who speaks English and has been waiting for you and he realized she's been waiting about six months for anyone to show up to sell her tea how are you so coffee you know this is tea what is this was this okay and she's just so excited you're there and you realize she hasn't seen anyone in 10 months this is gonna be another ten months before anyone comes shame yeah thank you thank you this is our Tea Room we gotta go or Duke we're late we had a good time it's so surreal there's nothing normal that happens ever in this whole country where are we going now we are going to military demarcation line Kim jong-il instructed that a soldiers must remain alert and be prepared for combat as long as the US imperialists exist on this planet your political indoctrination continues when the North Koreans take you to their side of the DMZ and going to the DMZ from the north is a completely different animal than going to the DMZ from the south and from the south you have to go through checkpoint checkpoint checkpoint checkpoint on the North Korean side you go from Pyongyang about a two and a half hour drive but when you go there actually it's a lot more laid-back although you do notice on the drive-in there's a hell of a lot more troops on the North Korean side and everywhere there's these massive monuments you're like what are those monuments and they say oh they're filled with dynamite and and if there's ever an invasion they blow up and they they fall down and their tank barriers that's the American building there so it's all cameras on and unlike the South Korean side you can shoot what you want you can point to people you give them the finger you can do whatever you want drink beer basically it's a big [ __ ] you to the South it's a big [ __ ] Americans we're having dum demilitarized zone where the armistice is signed between the DPRK and un all they want to do is tell you about how bad the Americans are this is where we defeated the American you know imperialist aggressors this is where North Korea shut down the biggest military power in the world and that's what everything's designed to do Oh No night vision because there's no electricity in Cameroon we got in trouble for shooting they said make it charge for a criminal offense so I'm trying to do this as quietly as possible we have to go in and put the guards army all you hear in the DMZ is talk of reunification is this a political thing like are you trying to reunify they won't mention just reunify reunify you think one day they will be in effect OSI is like not the master of the revolution are the masters of the people and we have the leader at that point you go these guys are serious and then on the way back you stopped off and you have a meal of like oh you're hungry hey let's just stop at this any old restaurant and they're pretending like this is like any restaurant we just showed up hey McDonald's on the side of the road but let's say there's seven of you you get to the restaurant there's seven places laid out and the whole other restaurants empty it's been choreographed they've been waiting for you for two days it's all set up the whole restaurant waiting to go ruin kaesong nice restaurant we just had a lovely meal you have launched which is like 50 plates of little [ __ ] again you can't eat any of it but it's like just look how much food we have we're so great so you know your first two days there you're like crazy food politics crazy food politics so you start to get a bit freaked out at this point and then on the way back you know thinking this is the fourth largest army in the world all along this border and they've threatened America with with nukes and Japan with nukes I'm like how can they have nukes they don't have electricity it's like turn of the century industrial Britain how we have nukes the Korean people have leader Kim Jong Il in high esteem we're strengthened and developed the Workers Party career as the party of President Kim ears and forever this is the fortunate glory of Korea on the 60th birthday of the Workers Party of Korea working people of all walks of life throughout the country unfold the sea of dancing overwhelmed with emotions and joy so after driving back from the DMZ and our choreographed lunch you realize that everything is gonna be choreographed like hey what do you want to do tonight you want to go out for a few beers you're like hey it's so bad sure let's go for a few beers and you go out to the sort of state sanctioned karaoke place which is only really for foreigners and really high-ranking party officials now the guards have been waiting they've studied the whole life you know to English and they've studied political dialectics so that they're the best and the brightest and this is like the top position but they have to wait all year for about 10 days for any tourists to come so there's kind of this weird like they're holding back their excitement cuz they get to eat and they get to drink and smoke cigarettes and all these great things and you can see them vibrating they're so excited you know yeah have some cigarettes they're like and drinking but they're trying not to show it so goodnight to the present with the museum museum using the International International friendship exhibition we're gonna buy some ties for me bad for you bad for everybody so what does it mean chase hello I'm glad to meet you that's why you shake hands that's why eyes this is the first time that I told you I realize but that's why when you sing it you always shake hands yeah yeah tomorrow we have a big day good name Michael Knight so we went out on the town of Pyongyang well with our guards which is good because the guards weren't enjoying us as human beings today they threatened Jaime he was filming this with was it the girls insensitive crimes republic here something severe he directions all we had to do was buy like six bottles of blueberry wine and therefore he was fine except for mr. V he wanted to fight with missile swimming after we disrespected come some koomina the song that says pleased to meet you what drinking so true and we're going to bed now I mean mr. Lee yes it was the first song I taught you okay officers and men of the Korean People's Army and people are visiting the statue of president Kinison with Lawyer pledge to build surely a strong prosperous and powerful socialist nation in Korea through tweets behest so once they get through with the indoctrination like the Pueblo and DMZ of how bad the Americans are then begins how great we are and that starts with timuel song the eternal president and everybody has to go and pay the respects to the great statue of you know some who although he's been dead since 1994 is still the president of North Korea they arethe at the statue of kim ill sung this as a token of respect and then they took us to our south of Pyongyang to the International friendship exhibition which is this 2,000 room sort of fortress cut into a mountain deep into a mountain like 20 storeys down and what it is is it's all these presents that were given or sent to Kim il-sung by heads of state or or foreign dignitaries or notaries they're so paranoid about anyone finding out about these treasures that they won't let you know where this is they won't tell you anything and of course you can't shoot there and in fact they got really mad even when we were shooting outside he took my camera and he said how much memory does your camera have and I'm like oh I don't know 48 48 Meg's or something and he opened it up and he took it out I had a five gig card because I was shooting actual movies with it on the sly and he goes you're liar you lied to me you know very well that's not true this is five gigs and even if I had taken pictures down there which I didn't they just take care of your memory card and say thank you very much so we're hiding from our guards right now who don't want us to film anything we have to keep why it we're allowed to be quiet up here they're relaxing and having tea right now so we get a few seconds we're at the International friendship museum or otherwise known as International insanity museum where all the presents from all around the world came in sight alligators holding trays and all kinds of dead animals of ivory like huge ivory and all this gold stuff they have all this crazy business and there's so many attractions there are so many treasures that if you were to stop and look at each one it would take a year and a half to get through everybody goes on this pilgrimage at one time in their lives and they wear their best clothes women get dressed up a native costume their men wear their uniforms but what a benevolent God because he's sharing all these amazing treasures like he would share them with his children so they think that every leader in the world thinks that Kim il-sung is the best not that were mad at them our North Korea's on its own they think Kim il-sung is the best they don't understand that the world is mad at North Korea gifts came to him from political parties and delegations of various countries international organizations culture and French organizations figures the very strata and those who have connections with anti-japanese revolutionary struggle all the gifts are permeated with boundless reverence and phrases for Kings O'Neill who had a safeguard socialist career had made imperishable contributions to peace and security of mankind and the cause of making the world in the Congo the Metro in Pyongyang was built in a magnificent array and theaters were built as a representative of the time kinjal misguidance reach it construction opinion Metro and underground palatial structure going to the subway for us was a really big deal because we never got to interact with North Koreans and we were like wow we get to receive real live North Koreans going down into the Metro we're going down deep this is amazing because this is working subway bomb shelter and beautiful things they either tried to ignore you or they're incredibly fascinated by you and a lot of them look at you and they do not like you because they've been told you're the devil since they were 2 years old sick of the like subways are a big thing in communist countries I mean Moscow is famous for its lavish stops and on its public transportation system as is Pyongyang you know look at how great our public transport system is why can you take a yellow train so you get to go from one stop to another stop both of which are incredibly lavish and over-the-top the rest aren't as lavish and apparently the rest are just tiny little you know fight these dull things you come out of it are really functional but they have to sort of monumental ones that you're allowed to see you're not allowed to see in the other and as you come out you realize you know this is nineteen fifties Russia this is Soviet Russia this is Maoist China I've come back in a time warp Kim il-sung and Kim jong-il with the shoulder to shoulder so as to build a missile and the country were to live in Jim innocent once said that Kim Jung his ideas leadership and traits originated from is law for the people you on the 60th anniversary of the Workers Party career the national book exhibition was held in Gran's time the next stop on our tour of North Korean border propaganda was the great people's library which is this massive library that they're very very excited about and they make you walk the whole goddamn thing and the first thing you learn is that Kim jong-il invented the best most perfect reading desk because you can alter the level of the decimal personally sit down to share and talk to staff like this should we be made conveniently for the readers to regulate the particular seeking to Sheree's Kim Jong Il invented it and it's the best desk ever it's like okay it's a table with like you can move a level it's like acid then they take you to the philosopher hotline which I found pretty interesting which is if you have a like philosophical Marxist dialectic problem then you can come to the library and ask the sort of philosopher god they come here to ask professors about their questions then the professors give Democrat answers immediately the in this auditorium we give lectures collectively and also held scientific seminars so the persons with academic degrees or titles are taking part in the scientific seminars and thank you the other thing I found amazing is they're very proud of their modern music library they've got the Beatles and they've got like you know Bob Dylan and stuff but the music room was completely empty and I started thinking about why they have this kind of place it seemed to me that it was used for maybe upper echelons or party officials or guides or want to be guards to learn idiomatic speech so that they'll understand what we say when we talk in vernacular so you can sort of picture them with headphones on listening going Abbey Road I understand those bastards now the project was truly a summing up of construction engineering hydraulic engineering hydrometeorology and all other science and technology humanity has superseded the great monument that could be built by the Korean people only made by the great leaders they made us get up at 6:00 in the morning we get put in the truck and we just drive I mean we drove for like four hours and when we get out we're at the sea and there's this huge thing which is called a barrage I don't know what a barrage was but it's basically a huge Dam and they've dammed up the pay dong River and it's just a triumph of the will and oh my god it's the biggest greatest thing we ever did and now it's being blamed for the huge floods that they have and the the famine because of the floods and it's destroyed all of their rice growing crops which they don't have much of because it's it's a mountainous country he ended up destroying all the arable land that they had last which is you don't want him to stand in front of the great leader okay Shane don't stand in front of the dear leader because you're blocking him but they're so freaked out about the barrage that we were filming it which is why you brought us out there I thought and they're like film it anything more you're going to jail our political guard who he had nicknamed Speedy Gonzales because he looked like a little zippy guy and he was always everywhere started to really get mad at us we just been told not to stand in front of the picture of Kim jong-il actually Speedy Gonzales our guard who hates us shooting just saw us and he's not letting us shoot so I'm just going to talk about the barrage beautiful that's nice and he's looking at his fight palace freaking me out he's threatened Jaime who's shooting this with criminal action which means to go to jail here which would not be enjoyable he's looking at me now so we're gonna we're gonna walk over here check out that take another thing but ten languishing they have had enough of us by this point at this point we started to get really scared to like you know what stop filming stop shooting anything keep telling myself on the auspicious a holiday Kim Jong who sent precious gift to kindergartens wishing the children to blossom bear beautiful dreams emotions and talents from childhood one of the sort of fun / sad times is they took us to a school and it's a school kind of for the best and the brightest and the the prodigies and you go there and you see how great the students are and here it's just kids and uniforms being incredibly amazing and much better than we are of course at everything you know the best needle pointers are needle pointing away and the best guitar players are playing accordion players pianists the best at computer graphics whatever they have people for enunciation just one kid playing guitars amazing the guitar was bigger than me and again you're like oh these great kids and everything but it's so sad and so scary because they've been picked out and sort of like you will learn for the state and they're learning and learning and learning for the state and then there's a show we're going to an art performance now of the kids and then we give the flower app for the path to the performance you realize everything in this country's for Kim's on the old Kim jong-il like shows like Broadway likes musicals these kids are just press-gang into service for the state to provide shows for like the two tourists are there at any given time and this times a billion is what we were about to see with Ariane game to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Workers Party of Korea the message domestic display and at performance Arirang the Tennyson Prize laureate was given in presence of Kim Jong I took it this is the waiting room we'll probably go upstairs to the games but it's as you can see very busy bustling please the only reason why any tourists are allowed into North Korea is because of what you're about to see the area and games or the famous mass gymnastics are a hundred and twenty thousand people who work for about two years to do this incredibly elaborate choreographed sort of Andrew Lloyd Webber extravaganza but on ass you're sitting on a diet is reserved for Kim jong-il and you see the most insane thing you've ever seen in your life it's the history of the Korean Revolution as portrayed by 120,000 people doing a simultaneous pantomime Kim jong-il likes a spectacle man and this is the biggest spectacle in the world goons O'Neil had shown lofty love and trust for young people of career so that they could succeed the generation of the Sunbeam revolution invariable the grand torchlight parade of young Ben gasps began with the flag of the Kinnison socialist Youth League decorated with image the president Kinnear song in the bank just got back from the last games and now we're at the restaurant and they have like seasoned dog smothered ox rib this wouldn't be bad that's not it but as you can see it's not it was kind of nuts of the games because you know I was sitting there where you can write Madeleine Albright sat right where Kim jong-il Satan like we're just it's just we're sitting here just for us it wasn't that big it was everything you just sit there you feel like God why are you feeling god if you slept we have a song about three days it was our last night so we went out for last night karaoke fest as you do but what was interesting was it was a South Korean machine and had some program songs in it Western songs at first they thought oh he's just drunk making a mockery of a military song and they didn't know how to deal with it the women didn't know how to deal with it it was just like what Simon they have no cultural references whatsoever Oh so when I finished singing you know they're all looking at me like I'm crazy I realized they don't know what punk rock is not only do they not have Rock and old they didn't have jazz they didn't have [ __ ] blues they never had any of this [ __ ] there are no cultural similarities whatsoever sometimes I imagine someone coming from the cowboy times like someone who comes in a time machine or frozen and ice or something and you have to explain to them what an airplane is we have to explain to them you know what supermarkets are and this is as close as you get to that this is a time machine this is 1930s rush or 1950s Soviet Union so they see me as the Yankee imperialist aggressor and I see them as the land that time forgot by the great leader Kim Sunil for the course of modeling the entire army on the church an idea would have played at the Korean Revolution museum leader Kim Jong Il put forward it as the gender task for army building between the People's Army into the army of the liver and the body by modeling the entire

Channel: Cezar Pimentel Filho

Views: 1,074,936

Rating: 4.642766 out of 5

Keywords: Pyongyang, The men inside North Korea, Vice Guide To Travel (TV Program), North Korea (Country), Shane Smith (TV Program Creator), Documentary (TV Genre), Inside North Korea, JovemNerd

Id: OtuFaEy4jzE

Length: 58min 26sec (3506 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 13 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/arealhumannotabot]

Sorry 'bout the title gore — this was released as a handful of 5 minute videos back when Youtube was pretty new.

Under the guise that they're just travelers (as they were actually breaking local laws by being journalists) The two travel to South Korea to gather what they could on the North, visiting the DMZ, when they learn they can access NK by flying via China. They captured quite a bit of footage and I wish they were able to interview a local and show a slice of life but it's so heavily controlled.

[u/the_one_true_wilson]

I missed these videos! I remember watching this YEEEARS ago, thanks for doing this!