Korea: The Never-Ending War

After 15 years of knowing Chosun people in Japan I met on Mt. Geumgang in 2002, I face the history of colonization and division that I had not known before. They’ve been to North Korea many times, but never to South Korea. They tell us why they want to live as Chosun people despite the discrimination in Japanese society. 

Documentary focuses on Sona, the daughter of the director’s brother who moved to North Korea from Japan in the early 1970s. Through Sona, the film shows the generation that migrated from Japan to North Korea and their offspring who were born and raised in North Korea.

In 2000, in the era of inter-Korean reconciliation, 63 non-converted prisoners were repatriated to the North, and a 2nd repatriation movement was launched in 2001 but failed again and again in later years. As of 2022, the average age of the surviving secondary repatriation applicants is 91.

Two North Korean soldiers are killed in the border area between North and South Korea, prompting an investigation by a neutral body. The sergeant is the shooter, but the lead investigator, a Swiss-Korean woman, receives differing accounts from the two sides.

A squad of soldiers fight in the Korean War's crucial Battle of Incheon.

Two Marine Corps combat photographers compete for the love of a Red Cross nurse during the Korean War. During a secret mission behind the North Korean lines their rivalry reaches a boiling point.

The staff of a Korean War field hospital use humor and hijinks to keep their sanity in the face of the horror of war.

Is it possible to have fun in Pyongyang? Can one be joyful in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea? If so, who can? Everyone? Doing what? Why does Kim Jong-un bet on amusement parks, skis trails, and tourism? This film allows to go beyond mass parades and recurring missile crisis, to meet the people of North Korean “Hermit Kingdom”. The authors have been there dozen times, like amateur anthropologists, filming during eight years parties and harvests, factories and singing contests, Pyongyang and the countryside – and interviewing North Korean people.