Pyongyang Film Studios

Several films a year are churned out by the country’s main film studios in the suburbs of Pyongyang. The two main focuses are predictably the anti-Japanese struggle and the anti-American war. The main complex is a huge, propaganda-filled suite of office buildings where post-production apparently goes on, even though it feels eerily empty. A short uphill drive takes you to the large sets, which are far more fun. Here you’ll find a generic ancient Korean town for historic films (you can even dress up as a king or queen and be photographed sitting on a throne carpeted in leopard skin), a 1930s Chinese street, a Japanese street, a South Korean street (look for the massage signs meant to illustrate their compatriots’ moral laxity) and a fairly bizarre range of structures from a collection of ‘European’ buildings.