March 29, 2024
Evergreen

“Ten Zan”: the disastrous Italian action movie filmed entirely in North Korea

The work of a struggling director and a movie-mad North Korean leader, "Ten Zan" is one of the strangest films ever made

More than the monumental gold statues, the peasant-doctors, or the old women toiling away with shovels as he passed, it was probably North Korea’s highway that bewildered Frank Zagarino most.

The way that, in the stillness of the Pyongyang night, a streetcleaner would sweep the road and its empty lanes—and the next morning different workers would return, tidying the already spotless tarmac all over again.

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