[aculeus]

Perhaps this has something to do with it ... (via BBC)

Saturday, 14 December, 2002, 15:54 GMT

North Korea takes aim at Bond

James Bond's latest "enemy" is fighting back.

Fictional North Korean agents torture the British spy in his new film, and now Pyongyang is angry for real.

Official statement

North Korea has called on the United States to stop showing Die Another Day saying it is "insulting the Korean nation".

The film - starring Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry - "clearly proves" the US is "the root cause of all disasters and misfortune of the Korean nation" and is "an empire of evil", according to the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.

In his 20th adventure, Bond tries to stop an illegal arms deal between a South African diamond smuggler and evil North Korean officer, Colonel Moon, feared to be planning an invasion of South Korea and then Japan.

He takes a hovercraft across the heavily fortified border but is caught and tortured in North Korea before being released in a prisoner exchange.

'Inciting confrontation'

Bond's Korea shows a farmer tilling a field with a cow, which critics say makes the country appear backward. 007 also finds time for sex in a Buddhist temple.


The secretariat's statement said the film is a "dirty and cursed burlesque aimed to slander [North Korea] and insult the Korean nation".

It says the film describes North Korea "as part of an 'axis of evil', inciting inter-Korean confrontation, groundlessly despising and insulting the Korean nation and malignantly desecrating even religion".

The US is "the headquarters that spreads abnormality, degeneration, violence and fin-de-siecle corrupt sex culture", the statement said.

Widespread upset

The temple sex scene has also caused upset in South Korea where some opponents are trying to organise a boycott of the film before it opens.

Relations between the US and both Koreas have been going through difficult periods.

US President George W Bush called North Korea part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and Iraq and there are new fears about Pyongyang's suspected nuclear weapons programme.

In South Korea, anti-American sentiment has swelled after the acquittals of two US soldiers whose armoured vehicle killed two Korean girls in June.

[MonroeDNA]

The film WAS bogus. They have no cows. It's the people who are eating grass.

[ApesForEvolution]

I flaggelate in North Korea's general direction...

[Toirdhealbheach Beucail]

And, in a related note, the North Korean government complained that when the 007 Bond theme is played backwards, it says "Kim Jong-Il is the Great Satan and his momma sucks eggs".

Sheesh....

[notdownwidems]

The secretariat's statement said the film is a "dirty and cursed burlesque aimed to slander [North Korea] and insult the Korean nation".


Gee, I was all set to not see this movie...have to go and see it now...sounds good!

[ccmay]

In South Korea, anti-American sentiment has swelled after the acquittals of two US soldiers whose armoured vehicle killed two Korean girls in June.

They never liked us very much over there. Add them to the Somalis, Kuwaitis and Bosnians on the roster of Turd World ingrates who hate us for shedding the blood of our young men to defend their liberty.

The Koreans are a crazy bunch. I've heard them described as the Irish of Asia, they love to fight amongst themselves but tolerate no interference from outside.

I say let the fat little dictator up north have the whole place, then we'll see whether the anti-American whacko students and their Molotov cocktails survive for even a month.

-ccm