Bureau 39: Kim's Cash Machine
Genres
Overview
How is it possible that North Korea, one of the poorest countries on earth finances a nuclear weapons program large enough to challenge the USA? The answer: Bureau 39, a legendary organization nestled deep inside the government apparatus. Its aim is to procure foreign exchange by any means possible to provide Kim Jong-un’s regime with money.
Details
Budget
$0
Revenue
$0
Runtime
60 min
Release Date
2020-12-15
Status
Released
Original Language
German
Vote Count
4
Vote Average
7.8
Remco Breuker
Self
Hugh Griffiths
Self
Kyun-Chul Seong
Self
Koh Young-Hwan
Self
Simon Choi
Self
7.2
Crossing the Line
In 1962, a U.S. soldier sent to guard the peace in South Korea deserted his unit, walked across the most heavily fortified area on earth and defected to the Cold War enemy, the communist state of North Korea. He became a star of the North Korean propaganda machine, but then disappeared from the face of the earth. Now, after 45 years, the story of James Dresnok, the last American defector in North Korea, is being told for the first time. Crossing the Line follows Dresnok as he recalls his childhood, desertion, and life in the DPRK.
2006-10-16 | en
0.0
Homes Apart: Korea
They speak the same language, share a similar culture and once belonged to a single nation. When the Korean War ended in 1953, ten million families were torn apart. By the early 90s, as the rest of the world celebrated the end of the Cold War, Koreans remain separated between North and South, fearing the threat of mutual destruction. Beginning with one man's journey to reunite with his sister in North Korea, filmmakers Takagi and Choy reveal the personal, social and political dimensions of one of the last divided nations on earth. The film was also the first US project to get permission to film in both South & North Korea.
1991-01-02 | ko
7.7
A State of Mind
Two young North Korean gymnasts prepare for an unprecedented competition in this documentary that offers a rare look into the communist society and the daily lives of North Korean families. For more than eight months, film crews follow 13-year-old Pak Hyon Sun and 11-year-old Kim Song Yun and their families as the girls train for the Mass Games, a spectacular nationalist celebration.
2005-08-10 | en
6.8
Assassins
True crime meets global spy thriller in this gripping account of the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of the North Korean leader. The film follows the trial of the two female assassins, probing the question: were the women trained killers or innocent pawns of North Korea?
2021-08-12 | en
6.0
The Fantastic
In Maija Blåfield’s documentary, eight former North Koreans talk about what it was like to watch illegal films in a closed society. In addition to the 'waste videos', South Korean films were also smuggled into the country via China.
2021-10-15 | ko
8.0
The Secret Order
Phil Comeau shines a spotlight on the Ordre de Jacques-Cartier, a powerful secret society that operated from 1926 to 1965, infiltrating every sector of Canadian society and forging the fate of French-language communities. Through never-before-heard testimony from former members of the Order, along with historically accurate dramatic reconstructions, this film paints a gripping portrait of the social and political struggles of Canadian francophone-minority communities.
2022-11-14 | fr
6.2
Kimjongilia
The first film to fully expose the humanitarian crisis of North Korea, this stylish, deeply moving documentary is centered around astonishing interviews with survivors of North Korea's vast and largely hidden prison camps, and interspersed with archival footage of North Korean propoganda films and original art performances.
2009-01-18 | en
6.5
Dennis Rodman's Big Bang in PyongYang
Dennis Rodman is on a mission. After forging an unlikely friendship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, he wants to improve relations between North Korea and the US by staging a historic basketball game between the two countries. But the North Korean team isn't the only opposition he'll face... Condemned by the NBA and The Whitehouse, and hounded every step of the way by the press, can Dennis keep it together and make the game happen? Or will it go up in a mushroom cloud of smoke? For the first time, discover the true story of what happened when Dennis Rodman took a team of former-NBA players to North Korea and staged the most controversial game of basketball the world has never seen.
2015-01-25 | en
5.5
A Postcard from Pyongyang
"A Postcard from Pyongyang" is a journey into a deeply enigmatic and completely isolated country that keeps the world in suspense: North Korea. Friends Gregor Möller, Philip Kist and Anne Lewald visit in 2013 and 2017 and do what is strictly forbidden and for which they might have ended up in a forced labor camp: even though accompanied by state watchers, they secretly film their travels, accompanied by state watchdogs. We get an extraordinary insight into one of the most closed societies in the world and experience the 'beautiful new world' as the state propaganda machinery displays it.
2019-09-26 | de
5.5
Korea, A Hundred Years of War
A contemporary history of Korea(s) from a unique point of view that embraces the inner history of both South and North Korea in a single narrative.
2020-06-11 | fr
0.0
The Occult in Your Living Room
Stephen Dollins, an ex-Satanist High Priest, exposes the subtle devices used to infiltrate the homes of Christians and non-Christians alike to lure the young and old into the practice of Witchcraft and Satanism. Discover the evil truth behind today’s crazes: movies, video games, and role-playing fantasy games. These devices initiate our children into the world of the occult by making evil appear to be “cute”, such as Teletubbies, Pokemon and various children’s books.
2000-12-10 | en
6.0
Special Broadcast Movie "Shin Kamen Rider" Premise/Act 1: Kumo-Aug
A TV special which contained the first 23 minutes of "Shin Kamen Rider" footage and was broadcasted on MBS in order to promote the movie.
2023-03-28 | ja
6.5
Dictator: One Crazy Job
They’ve become the human face of inhuman barbarity. Leaders like Hitler, Idi Amin Dada, Stalin, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceausescu, Bokassa, Muammar Kadhafi, Khomeini, Mussolini and Franco governed their countries completely cut off from reality. These paranoid leaders were driven to abuse their power by the pathology of power itself. Dictators are driven by a relentless, thought-out determination to impose themselves as infallible, all-knowing and all-powerful beings. But they are also men ruled by their caprices, uncontrollable impulses, and reckless fits of frenzy, which paradoxically render them as human as anyone else. The abuses they committed were clearly atrocious, yet some of them were as outlandish as the characters portrayed in the film The Dictator. They sunk to depths worthy of Kafka: so incredibly absurd, they are outrageously funny.
2013-06-12 | fr
7.7
Beyond Utopia
A courageous pastor uses his underground network to rescue and aid North Korean families as they risk their lives to embrace freedom.
2023-10-23 | en
10.0
Cinema in the Land of Comrade Kim
The love of Kim Jong Il, the former dictator of North Korea, for cinema and his adventures, including the kidnapping of a director.
2024-10-12 | fa
6.9
The Lovers and the Despot
Hong Kong, 1978. South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee is kidnapped by North Korean operatives following orders from dictator Kim Jong-il.
2016-09-22 | en
6.8
Cold Case Hammarskjöld
Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (currently Zambia), September 18, 1961. Swedish economist and diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the UN, dies mysteriously in a plane crash. Decades later, Danish journalist and filmmaker Mads Brügger and Swedish researcher Göran Björkdahl investigate the case in search of definitive closure.
2019-02-07 | en
7.2
Under the Sun
Over the course of one year, this film follows the life of an ordinary Pyongyang family whose daughter was chosen to take part in Day of the Shining Star (Kim Jong-il's birthday) celebration. While North Korean government wanted a propaganda film, the director kept on filming between the scripted scenes. The ritualized explosions of color and joy contrast sharply with pale everyday reality, which is not particularly terrible, but rather quite surreal.
2015-10-30 | de
6.7
Dear Pyongyang
Dear Pyongyang is a documentary film by Zainichi Korean director Yang Yong-hi (Korean: 양영희, Hanja: 梁英姬) about her own family. It was shot in Osaka Japan (Yang's hometown) and Pyongyang, North Korea, In the 1970s, Yang's father, an ardent communist and leader of the pro-North movement in Japan, sent his three sons from Japan to North Korea under a repatriation campaign sponsored by ethnic activist organisation and de facto North Korean embassy Chongryon; as the only daughter, Yang herself remained in Japan. However, as the economic situation in the North deteriorated, the brothers became increasingly dependent for survival on the care packages sent by their parents. The film shows Yang's visits to her brothers in Pyongyang, as well as conversations with her father about his ideological faith and his regrets over breaking up his family.
2006-01-23 | ja
6.8
The Game of Their Lives
A BBC documentary producer is given unprecedented access in North Korea to chronicle the story of the famed 1966 World Cup team from the North that advanced to the quarterfinals. The feature includes interviews with surviving members of the team, English fans and soccer pundits who saw the North Koreans upset Italy, 1-0.
2002-10-21 | en