Review of 'The Propaganda Game' by Dermot Hudson

                                        

The well known Spanish Writer-director Álvaro Longoria set out to investigate and explore the theme of the propaganda war against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea . This film is a result of his visit to the DPRK arranged by the Korean Friendship Association and the DPRK  Committee For Cultural Relations .

    The primary strength of the film is that the fascinating footage of the DPRK , showing the carefree lives of working people in the DPRK and the fact that Alejandro Cao Be Benos , the founder and President of the Korean Friendship Association plus officials of the DPRK Cultural Relations

Committee and ordinary working people are able to put the case for the DPRK . They are able to point out that housing is free of charge and that the people of the DPRK do not pay taxes. Some of the Koreans interview expressed surprise and dismay at some of the lies being peddled about the DPRK such as the story about laws about hairstyles !

    Unfortunately , probably as a concession to capitalist commercial interests , the film does include

some anti-DPRK material from various 'defectors' and so-called experts on the DPRK . The DPRK's

opponents however come across very poorly in the film , a bit of a freak show . Andrei Lankov , a Russian 'liberal' expert on the DPRK who is resident in south Korea and teaches at a south Korean private university(no doubt with a big salary and plenty of expenses etc) , looked like he was unable to sit up in his chair and had the appearance of someone mentally ill. Similarly Barbara Demick looks an unappealing woman with big ears. This hack journalist has a black hole in her biography before a particular date. The creepy looking Judge Michael Kirby pops up in the film to pour vitriol on the DPRK , now Kirby himself will be an interesting target for an investigative documentary as he has been linked to shadowy pro-US organisations and was living in a $10 million flat (there were also allegations about his private life by an Australian senator a few years ago). The audience was also treated to theatrical and plastic celebrity defector Yeomi Park also appears in the film . The DPRK has made a documentary exposing this unsavoury young lady and her background, others have taken apart her story.

    A couple of Chinese revisionists appear in the film to  dismiss the DPRK but Alejandro Cao De Benos makes short work of exposing China as revisionist and a traitor to socialism "Mao was betrayed by his comrades, Stalin was betrayed by his comrades " he says.

  'Seeing is believing' as Koreans say and basically the reality of the DPRK proved these ill minded and vicious slanderers  who are hired by imperialism and the south Korean puppets . We saw Korean people at play , relaxing and wedding ceremonies. Many buildings were being constructed. Longoria said that he saw no evidence of the black market capitalist economy that some so-called experts claim exists . Longoria though is clearly not a socialist or a communist as he seemed to be puzzled by how the DPRK's construction boom is funded . “Why is the money coming from ?“ he asked twice . Well we can tell him that is socialist planning , socialist ownership and Juche that provides the wherewithal for all the construction . Regrettably and bizarrely Longoria appears to doubt that the Catholic church in Pyongyang is real .

Longoria also had a one-sided take on reunification seeing only is meaning south Korea absorbing

the DPRK and appeared to be totally ignorant of the DPRK proposals for a Confederal Republic

and the inter-Korean agreements of 2000 and 2007. The possibility of the south Korean people

rising up in a revolution against south Korean puppet rule and reunifying with their brothers and sisters in the north also appears to have escaped his mind.

                                

Nevertheless despite these shortcomings in the film the DPRK and the Korean Friendship Association in the form of Alejandro Cao Be Benos shine through in the film. The film contains a rare interview with Alejandro's parents for the first time. The no-nonsense straight talking style of Alejandro in defending the DPRK is impressive . Some so-called friends of the DPRK have often shy-ed away from such a robust defence of the DPRK but Alejandro was there in the film defending the DPRK , hammering the lies of the reactionaries. It showed the great work done by Alejandro and the KFA in defending the DPRK .

If you are prepared to stomach some extreme anti DPRK material and take some things with a pinch of salt then this is a very good film to watch.