At the mercy of Dennis Rodman in North Korea: film director tells all

Guardian ^ | November 5, 2015 | Oliver Hotham

[TigerLikesRooster]

At the mercy of Dennis Rodman in North Korea: film director tells all

Erratic behaviour, media scrums and skiing. Colin Offland talks to NK News about his new film following the basketball star’s trip in 2014

Oliver Hotham for NK News, part of the North Korea network

Thursday 5 November 2015 06.00 GMT

Colin Offland’s film about Dennis Rodman’s trip to North Korea is a rollercoaster of a documentary.

Following the former Chicago Bulls basketball player and a motley crew of his fellow ex-NBA colleagues, the film – called Dennis Rodman’s Big Bang in Pyongyang – depicts the group’s efforts to bring peace to the troubled Korean peninsula by organising a basketball game, while also throwing the leader Kim Jong-un a “birthday party to remember”.

But it doesn’t all go according to plan. The film follows the events as – amid massive press coverage and criticism of Rodman – sponsors pull out and tempers fray. It’s a tragicomedy, balancing the absurdity of the Rodman’s friendship with the leader of the secretive state with a sympathetic and nuanced eye not usually seen in documentaries about the DPRK.

Offland says he first stumbled on the story in 2013, when Rodman, in collaboration with gambling company Paddy Power, announced he was returning to North Korea to put on a basketball game. He’d been to the country before, in February 2013 with Vice and the Harlem Globetrotters (an exhibition basketball team), and having befriended the great leader on his first trip, Rodman was going back to train the national team and organise a US-North Korea game.

[21twelve]

IIRC, the Norks won.

[LibWhacker]

Is it true that Dear Leader beat him one on one, three straight games in a row, 100 to 0 ? Nobody beats DL and Rodman was his B*!