North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un is reported to love Hollywood movies, especially Jackie Chan flicks. If true, this might explain what is perhaps the most bizarre video ever released by any country’s leader.
In the nearly 12-minute-long video of Kim comically directing the launch of his country’s latest ICBM, the Hwasong-17, while stirring — and dated — background music plays, Kim can be seen striding toward the hangar where the missile is being stored. Flanked by two generals, Kim’s grandiose gesturing is like something out of an old silent movie.
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The drama builds as the narrator’s voice becomes more and more fanatical. And then, the command to launch is given and three different cuts show the unintentionally hysterical repeating of Kim’s order to launch.
An officer yells into a phone, a soldier waves a flag and several rogue regime troops begin screaming in a command trailer as the countdown begins.
“Fire!” one of Kim’s men shouts, prompting the launch button to be pushed.
The missile flies skyward, spewing red flames and thick smoke, as Kim and his entourage raise their hands in triumph.
In the next scene, a smiling Kim is seen strolling shoulder to shoulder with soldiers clad in desert-style combat uniforms and body armor.
Allapundit wonders if it’s all an act or if he really believes he’s a “bad-ass.”
You’re going to see the dictator himself whip off his sunglasses and stare at the camera as the missile launches in a moment so suffused with melodramatic tough-guy bravado that you’ll come away convinced the video is an elaborate troll. And it is! It was surely made with western audiences in mind (“there has been virtually nothing like this on North Korean screens before,” the BBC reports). Whether Kim truly believes he looks bad-ass or is just aping dumb American stereotypes of what looking like a bad-ass involves is beside the point. He’s acting regardless, to unintended comic effect.
Surely, Kim can do better than this. While his people may be locked away in the “Hermit Kingdom,” he has access to western-style talent to produce truly slick and modern propaganda. The film is an attempt to play to our biases about North Korea’s supposed “backwardness.”
Regardless of why, the film is unintended comic genius and deserves to be screened at Sunday night’s Oscar Awards show. It might even make the show more watchable.