ABSTRACT
North Korea has one undeniable freedom, a freedom disallowed during the colonial era, attenuated by the Sinified elite of the Yi Dynasty, and a freedom less easily exercised in the South: the freedom to be Korean. This chapter begins with the commentary by Bruce Cumings, an American academic traveling in North Korea. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the only nation-state in the Asian Pacific Rim that is reluctant to participate in the realigned global capitalist system. North Korean cinema seeks to counterbalance the destabilizing effect of national division by projecting images of a restructured, harmonious nation. The North Korean government was desperately attempting to secure its autonomous national identity when a number of major external crises challenged its position as a sovereign state. Major political and social institutions of North Korean society are clearly organized, with the presumably organic relationships carefully designed and systematically presented for the general public.
