BEYOND UTOPIA

BEYOND UTOPIA is an extremely jeopardy-filled, exciting, dramatic documentary which uses real video footage smuggled out of North Korea, plus footage of an escape through China to Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, with no dramatic recreations, although there are a few artistic sketches illustrating some of the descriptions. There are many Koreans in South Korea and in the United States trying to help the people of North Korea.

BEYOND UTOPIA focuses on Pastor Seungeun Kim who has helped more than 1,000 people escape North Korea. The movie also focuses on a family, consisting of a grandmother, parents and two children, trying to escape North Korea and get to freedom, by going over the Yalu River, climbing mountains, trying to escape authorities and travel all the way through China and then Vietnam and Laos, which are controlled by China, to get to Thailand. Much of this escape route is shown with documentary footage shot by cell phones and other discreet cameras. Another story running throughout the movie is a mother trying to pay brokers to help her son escape so they can be reunited in South Korea.

In the process of telling these two stories, which are very heartrending and exciting, the movie reveals a lot about North Korea and its totalitarian communist regime. Pastor Kim became interested in saving people from North Korea when, at the beginning of his ministry, he was stationed in a Chinese city just across the border and saw North Korean orphans doing everything they could to survive as little children. The movie interviews several people who escaped North Korea, some of whom were in concentration camps for absolutely nothing significant. One man went from 170 pounds to under 90 pounds and had his bones broken but eventually escaped.

The name BEYOND UTPOPIA originates from a North Korean village, which looks very broken down and pathetic, where the government tells the villagers they’re living in utopia, and they think they are. They are also told Americans want to kill all of them and steal their land. They are also taught to always use the word American with the word bastard. Little children are taught to hate Americans and attack dummies that are called Americans. They also have mass events of 100,000 people where the aim is to show how wonderful North Korea is and how evil America is. Foreigners are often impressed by these events, but the children, starting at a very young age, are forced to do extreme maneuvers, usually on concrete, which often hurts some of the children for their whole life.

In North Korea, anyone who’s suspect is starved or taken to a concentration camp or, worse, put in a gulag prison. In the gulag prison, they’re often given an ax to cut down trees, which are gigantic, and the massive trees roll down the hill, crushing and killing prisoners coming up the hill. In the cold, three or four emaciated bodies hit by a log may be frozen together. In the villages in North Korea, which is one of the poorest countries on Earth thanks to communism, they can’t have toilets. Instead, they have outhouses with buckets to collect their excrement, which is then given to the government for fertilizer.

The third generation Kim family president ruling North Korea currently is very paranoid. He has killed his uncle and purportedly hired the assassins to kill his half-brother. He will not give up his nuclear weapons because the saw what happened to Qaddafi and other dictators who give up their weapons.

The grandmother in the little escaping family think he’s a god, which is taught to every child and citizen throughout their life. Although Kim was born in China, they have created a shrine out of a little shack, giving him a birth story that sounds like the Nativity Story of Jesus.

Pastor Kim joins the family in China to help them escape through Vietnam and Laos. He raises money to pay brokers. The other family trying to get their son and grandson to escape also pays money to brokers. They all admit the brokers just want the money. They aren’t interested in the people at all. North Korea actually pays the guards a bounty if they kill the people escaping and also pays the brokers to turn the people back in to North Korean authorities.

The journey across China, Vietnam and Laos in BEYOND UTOPIA is filled with jeopardy, where no one can be trusted. Although the family is escaping to freedom, they are constantly becoming aware that life outside of North Korea is better and that the government constantly lied to them. What happens to this family and to the young son is very important to be seen. At one time, the brokers are taking the family in circles asking for more money. In his rescue efforts, Pastor Kim has broken his neck, hip and other bones, yet persists in trying to save people.

All the people mentioned in the movie trying to rescue defectors are Christian and involved in missionary associations. There are prayers in the Name of Jesus in beyond utopia and many discussions of the Gospel. One escapee says that, in the middle of the Yalu River, he prayed but didn’t know what god he was praying to because prayer was forbidden in North Korea.

BEYOND UTOPIA is not only important to be seen, but it’s also very exciting and heartrending. The filmmakers are extremely brave to make such an anti-Marxist, anti-socialist movie and submit it for Hollywood Award consideration.

Readers should note, however, that BEYOND UTOPIA has documentary footage showing the horrors and brutality of North Korea’s communist regime. So, serious caution is advised for younger people, although BEYOND UTOPIA should be seen by older teenagers, college students and everyone else who’s been so brainwashed by the educational establishment and by many in the mass media that they do not understand the evils of socialism.