Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

tjwhale I want to review this film in two halves.The story is just incredible, so powerful and moving, it's so hard to believe these places exist.Shin obviously struggles with recalling his past and it is important to hear what he has to say.So that part of it is good.However I think the film as a film is pretty bad.All of the information is much too spaced out, there are long pauses between every statement. Some of the movie has a voice over translation and some of it has subtitles which is a bit disorientating.And in the last 10 minutes Shin makes some statements which are startling and shocking and really change the interpretation of the whole of the rest of the movie.Which is very badly handled as really, in my opinion, those statements should have come half way through the movie and there should have been an extended investigation into them.The film maker is handed a unique opportunity to talk to one of the most interesting people on the planet and really bungles it, not getting into the depths of the issue, just telling the story as is.Though there is a power in that. The story speaks for itself with such intensity it is worth watching just for that.

Goloh No rational person can doubt the ferocity of life in DPRK. Nobody is safe, and I don't doubt at all the basic truths of this film. But I have one question, maybe I just missed the explanation but in a country where there is no individualism and everyone spies on everyone else--which we assume to be the case--how could a 14-year-old boy, after escaping from a labour camp like this, just turn up in a nearby village and hang out there with no money, no work, no relatives, no friends, and more importantly no contacts to shield him from local police or camp guards who knew he escaped and must have been looking for him? The film did say the frozen river made it easier then to cross into China, but he had no prior knowledge of the outside world apart from what he was told by his cellmate? It could not have been as "easy" as the film made it sound, given the circumstances of the escape and even the time of year when it would have been very cold.On other points, the interlude among the group preparing for a road trip in support of Free DPRK was jarring in that it didn't lighten the mood, it just seemed out of place. And the chain-smoking ex-guard was pure evil, far more than any fictional character.

TheExpatriate700 Camp 14: Total Control Zone is a genuinely disturbing documentary about a young man who escaped from a North Korean prison camp where he had lived since birth. It paints a genuinely horrifying portrait of a totalitarian regime and its capacity to dehumanize its subjects.The film's main narrative focuses on the experiences of a man who was born to North Korean prisoners and spent his entire childhood in the prison camp. He relates experiences such as his first memory-an execution-daily life within the camp, informing on people, and being tortured by the camp guards. His story is supplemented with footage smuggled out of North Korea and former camp guards who defected to the South.Camp 14 is at its best when it relates the psychological effects on the inmates, particularly those born there. However, the interviews with the guards could have benefited from more background, particularly their reasons for defecting. Furthermore, no source or explanation is given for the footage from North Korea, leading to questions regarding its veracity.

jlance988 !!!@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@!!!!!!!! I came across this movie after seeing shin speak about his experience on Anderson Cooper. I knew it was going to be a sad story, one of torture and the freedom of escape from a horrible place....What really struck me, is at the end when he says that he misses his pure heart and would rather live in the camp he came from and endure the beatings and abuse than to live in the modern world with the constant struggle for money and the constant worry that comes with everyday life....What does this say about modern day society? This man still knows no peace even with freedom because we are still slaves to something, all of us. I can only imagine wanting to taste something you only ever heard about, to think you are in heaven and then to be let down by it and realizing the places are different, the situation different but you still are not free. He misses the ignorance of his sheltered life. It makes me sad for humanity that consumerism and greediness has ruined us. And we wonder how people can be institutionalized and even feel a comfort after time in it? I understand it, and I wish him all the best the world can offer him. I thought it was a great documentary and an eye opener!