“A grave provocation”: the sci-fi movie that carried a five-year jail term in North Korea
Obviously, North Korea is not a country renowned for its open borders and welcoming embrace of cultural staples from other nations, with Hollywood a particular thorn in the country’s side.
The fact that Seth Rogen almost caused an international incident with The Interview says it all about how the secretive state views any movie that dares to poke fun at its hierarchy of power, with American films outright banned, and anyone caught watching them runs the risk of a severe penalty.
Of course, bootlegs and smuggled copies still manage to slip through the border, but it takes a brave soul to fire up a low-resolution DVD of a Stateside flick in North Korea, knowing fine well that they could be imprisoned, sentenced to hard labour, or even execution, as insane as it sounds.
With that in mind, it doesn’t sound like it’s worth it for any citizens even to contemplate watching something they’ve been told they’re not supposed to be watching, but a Roland Emmerich blockbuster, of all things, ended up becoming public enemy number one, based entirely on its title and content.
The ‘Master of Disaster’ unleashed 2012, the latest in his long line of earth-destroying spectacles, in 2009, where it became one of the highest-grossing releases of the year, hoovering up almost $800 million at the global box office. Precisely none of that came from North Korea, as you might expect.
It wasn’t just because it was an American-backed production, though, with the reasons behind 2012’s outlawing being even more specific than that. April 15th of the titular year marked the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-Sung’s birth, and despite passing away in 1994 after 45 years in charge, he was declared the ‘Eternal President’ and remains North Korea’s official head of state from beyond the grave.
His son, Kim Jong-il, had declared 2012 as the year that North Korea would “open the grand gates to becoming a rising superpower,” and the concept of an effects-heavy slab of foreign escapism reducing the entire planet to dust, rubble, and ashes evidently didn’t jive with his pre-emptive prophecy.
As a result, the government was more staunchly opposed than usual to 2012, with the regime aghast at the prospect of any members of the population watching something where Earth is decimated by a string of natural disasters, tsunamis, Woody Harrelson cameos, and John Cusack saving a dog from imminent death.
Numerous arrests were made when North Korean nationals were caught watching copies of the film that had been smuggled in from China, and anyone who watched 2012 was accused of committing “a grave provocation against the development of the state,” which carried a five-year jail term. It’s not a good movie to begin with, so the risk absolutely wouldn’t have been worth the reward.
