Seoul Train

oh my god, this was depressing.

don't get me wrong, this was a wonderful film and I think it is very timely in subject concidering the state of the world today.

but damn, this was depressing. the movie follows the North Korea Refugee routes and the policies of china in regard to these refugees. the movie follows 24 north koreans as they try to escape through china to mongolia or japan. 7 make it to freedom, the rest no one is very sure about. the punishment for defection is death in north korea, and china has a policy of imediate repatriation for all north koreans caught in china.

the footage presented includes interviews from key players and hidden footage from inside north korea and from the attempts made to get the refugees to friendly countries. it is a very moving documentary.

after the film there was a very short q&a. and one question that stuck out was this: why didn't the north koreans travel south into south korea directly?

obviously not a history or geography major, because the reason is the 3 miles of land mines between the north korean army and the u.s. korean task force.

silly as it seems, this person sat through an entire movie about the north korean defectors believing they were idiots for not just going south. that's austin for ya.