IMDb RATING
8.0/10
3.4K
YOUR RATING
The story of several families as they attempt to escape oppression in North Korea, revealing a world most of us have never seen.The story of several families as they attempt to escape oppression in North Korea, revealing a world most of us have never seen.The story of several families as they attempt to escape oppression in North Korea, revealing a world most of us have never seen.
- Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
- 7 wins & 44 nominations total
Jean H. Lee
- Self, journalist
- (as Jean Lee)
Cheong
- self, Soyeon Lee's son
- (voice)
Storyline
Did you know
- ConnectionsFeatured in 2024 EE BAFTA Film Awards (2024)
Featured review
Sad, uplifting and hard to ignore
Ever since seeing "Beyond Utopia" I've been thinking about what makes a top-class documentary. It doesn't need to be entertaining, since that's the job of fiction, but it must be compelling and almost more than real. Maybe that's the trick? To show you an aspect of the world that you'd dismiss as unbelievable if you didn't know it to be true.
That's exactly what you get here. I knew, vaguely, that North Korea was this bizarre puppet state founded by Kim Il Sung and propped up by Russia. I also knew that his dynasty inculcated an almost religious aura around themselves as the father, mother and spirit of the country.
What I didn't know, or consider, was just how these so-called leaders managed to persist in the face of economic collapse, famine and prosperity elsewhere. What they've managed to combine is nationwide brain-washing and a totalitarian state of control that would make Stalin proud.
And yet that still doesn't get to the heart of the darkness. To control the population everyone is spying on everyone else. If you step out of line then you're sent to a reeducation camp. If you really step out of line (by trying to flee the country perhaps) then you wind up in the gulag and no one comes back from the gulag. But before then you'll be beaten, tortured and crushed with your family being forcibly relocated to another part of the country.
Despite this the poor North Korean people in "Beyond Utopia" still love their nation and why shouldn't they. It's where they belong and where their culture resides. The problem is that the communist state forces them to leave and to leave everything behind. It's just horrific on all counts.
The film pulls absolutely no punches in following the perilous journey undertaken by the refugees being tracked. There really isn't much of a happy ending for anyone when you dig into the meat of the story and there aren't any winners. Just victims of a murderous regime. That said it's a must watch if you want to be educated.
That's exactly what you get here. I knew, vaguely, that North Korea was this bizarre puppet state founded by Kim Il Sung and propped up by Russia. I also knew that his dynasty inculcated an almost religious aura around themselves as the father, mother and spirit of the country.
What I didn't know, or consider, was just how these so-called leaders managed to persist in the face of economic collapse, famine and prosperity elsewhere. What they've managed to combine is nationwide brain-washing and a totalitarian state of control that would make Stalin proud.
And yet that still doesn't get to the heart of the darkness. To control the population everyone is spying on everyone else. If you step out of line then you're sent to a reeducation camp. If you really step out of line (by trying to flee the country perhaps) then you wind up in the gulag and no one comes back from the gulag. But before then you'll be beaten, tortured and crushed with your family being forcibly relocated to another part of the country.
Despite this the poor North Korean people in "Beyond Utopia" still love their nation and why shouldn't they. It's where they belong and where their culture resides. The problem is that the communist state forces them to leave and to leave everything behind. It's just horrific on all counts.
The film pulls absolutely no punches in following the perilous journey undertaken by the refugees being tracked. There really isn't much of a happy ending for anyone when you dig into the meat of the story and there aren't any winners. Just victims of a murderous regime. That said it's a must watch if you want to be educated.
helpful•240
- movie-reviews-uk
- Nov 12, 2023
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Flykten från Nordkorea
- Filming locations
- Seoul, South Korea(location)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $11,716
- Gross worldwide
- $110,196
- Runtime1 hour 55 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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