North Koreans Don't Think 'The Interview' Is Funny
by Andy Neuenschwander
When "The Interview" released in America, critics were less than kind to the embattled film as they found the latest antics from Seth Rogen and James Franco to be more of the same.
But what do North Koreans think?
According to a North Korean defector by the name of Kim Seong Min, who works for a radio station in South Korea, even defectors from North Korea didn't find the movie very funny.
"Some North Korean viewers found it offensive that Kim Jong-un was being ridiculed and that the North Korean culture was portrayed in a very inaccurate way," said Kim. He also noted that even North Koreans who have left their country's oppressive rule don't understand that their former leader is a punchline. "Some have asked us if he really was being mocked overseas," he said.
According to Kim Seong Min, even some North Koreans still inside the country's borders have managed to view the film via smuggled mobile devices.
The major recurring complaint from North Korean viewers, though, is that star Randall Park doesn't really look very much like Kim Jong-Un. "In North Korea, actors in films are almost exact lookalikes of the heroes they are playing," said one of the North Korean defectors who saw the film.
However, some viewers noted that they were "heartbroken" over the bits where Franco's character points out the starvation that North Korean people face.
But even if they fail to see the joke in mocking the leader they were told was a god their whole lives, North Korean defectors did find some humor in the film...in how inaccurate the characters' behavior was as compared to actual North Koreans.