In 1962, a U.S. soldier sent to guard the peace in South Korea deserted his unit, walked across the most heavily fortified area on earth and defected to the Cold War enemy, the communist state of North Korea. He became a star of the North Korean propaganda machine, but then disappeared from the face of the earth. Now, after 45 years, the story of James Dresnok, the last American defector in North Korea, is being told for the first time. Crossing the Line follows Dresnok as he recalls his childhood, desertion, and life in the DPRK.
Related Movies
I Am From Chosun (2021)
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.
North Korea; Off-Piste (2017)
Having been granted special permission to film inside one of the most secretive countries in the world, Britain's fastest snowboarder sets off to experience first hand this country we know so little about.
The Red Princess (2022)
Who is Kim Yo-jong? In a context of maximum tensions between North Korea and the United States, Pierre Haski paints an unprecedented portrait of the little sister of Kim Jong-un, whose influence in Pyongyang is growing stronger day by day.
DMZ, The Wild (2017)
4-Part documentary series where Lee Min Ho films over a 700-day period in the DMZ to capture nature and animals. Untouched by humans for over half a century, DMZ’s nature would be close to how this land would look when the civilization disappears. Nature and wilderness breathe here freely, and endangered species have made the place their habitat. With the narration of actor Lee Min-ho, the documentary reveals the beauty of Korea’s nature in its rawest and purest form. Here, there is a silent land where humans stepped down. It is a military demarcation line between North and South. It is the foremost front that consumed two-thirds of the 37-month Korean War, and the DMZ, a military operation area that has not been available for more than 60 years since the armistice. It is the largest temperate primeval forest on Earth, where human history of heartbreak and the wild survival of wild animals coexist.
Goodbye, Pyongyang (2010)
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.
Beyond Utopia (2023)
A courageous pastor uses his underground network to rescue and aid North Korean families as they risk their lives to embrace freedom.
North Korea: All the Dictator's Men (2018)
North Korea has nuclear weapons. How did it manage to get them quietly? Donald Trump is under the impression that as US president he could convince Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, to disarm his nuclear weapons and make peace with South Korea. But how was it possible that one of the poorest countries in the world could acquire the knowledge to produce nuclear-tipped rockets?
Worlds largest rocket builder (2022)
It’s October 10 2020 and Kim Jong-un presents the largest mobile rocket on Earth. Jippe Liefbroer, Interaction Design student, sees the rocket and thinks: it can be bigger. For his graduation project he built 'Kimmi's worst nightmare', a 31 meter long rocket. That is 1 meter longer than Kim Jung-un's.
A State of Mind (2005)
Two young North Korean gymnasts prepare for an unprecedented competition in this documentary that offers a rare look into the communist society and the daily lives of North Korean families. For more than eight months, film crews follow 13-year-old Pak Hyon Sun and 11-year-old Kim Song Yun and their families as the girls train for the Mass Games, a spectacular nationalist celebration.
Have Fun in Pyongyang (2019)
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.
Ned, Tassot, Yossot (2023)
About five years after her film, Hana, dul, sed ... (2009), filmmaker Brigitte Weich returns to North Korea to ask four women on the national football team how their lives have evolved. In a friendly and congenial cooperation between the filmmaker and her protagonists, a work arises that not only tells about the concrete life of a professional athlete in North Korea, but also poses the question of the images that we all make of ourselves to give meaning to our lives and the world.
Homes Apart: Korea (1991)
They speak the same language, share a similar culture and once belonged to a single nation. When the Korean War ended in 1953, ten million families were torn apart. By the early 90s, as the rest of the world celebrated the end of the Cold War, Koreans remain separated between North and South, fearing the threat of mutual destruction. Beginning with one man's journey to reunite with his sister in North Korea, filmmakers Takagi and Choy reveal the personal, social and political dimensions of one of the last divided nations on earth. The film was also the first US project to get permission to film in both South & North Korea.
Korea: The Never-Ending War (2019)
Shedding new light on a geopolitical hot spot, the film — written and produced by John Maggio and narrated by Korean-American actor John Cho — confronts the myth of the “Forgotten War,” documenting the post-1953 conflict and global consequences.
North Korea: Inside The Mind of a Dictator (2021)
A journey through Kim Jong Un’s past and present to understand the man and the myth who holds North Korea’s uncertain future in his hands.
Kim Jong-un: The Unauthorized Biography (2015)
A journey through several countries to find those who really know Kim Jong-un, North Korea's leader, in an attempt to profile a contradictory dictator who seems to rule his nation with both disturbing benevolence and cold cruelty while being worshipped as a living god by his subjects in exalted displays of ridiculous fanaticism.
The Mole: Undercover in North Korea (2020)
A real-life undercover thriller about two ordinary men who embark on an outrageously dangerous ten-year mission to penetrate the world's most secretive and brutal dictatorship: North Korea.
Shadow Flowers (2021)
Ryun-hee Kim, a North Korean housewife, was forced to come to South Korea and became its citizen against her will. As her seven years of struggle to go back to her family in North Korea continues, the political absurdity hinders her journey back to her loved ones. The life of her family in the North goes on in emptiness, and she fears that she might become someone, like a shadow, who exists only in the fading memory of her family.