Comrade Kim

Here's a novelty worthy of note. The Pyongyang International Film Festival in North Korea screened the country's first romantic comedy co-produced with Western partners. If Hollywood had made Comrade Kim Goes Flying, it would have been a rags-to-riches story. In North Korea it's a coal-miner-to-trapeze-artist story. Han Jong-sim as Comrade Kim is the loveliest coal miner I've ever seen. She's fiesty too. British co-director Nick Bonner reckons the movie's theme is "girl-power" (CLICK). That'll scare the massed ranks of medal-decorated male generals standing behind their newly crowned junior leader.