(Warning: This Article Contains Spoilers)
North Koreans who escape their country have a long and arduous journey to freedom. They must traverse about 2,000 miles from North Korea to Laos. Through Laos, they walk on drug roads through mountains for hundreds of miles in order to reach Thailand, where they are finally free. If they are caught in China, Laos, or Vietnam, they will be sent back to North Korea where they will likely receive the harshest of treatment.
I have heard hundreds of testimonies over the years about this perilous journey but, because of the sensitive nature of the refugees and their stories, I have never seen video footage. The 2023 documentary “Beyond Utopia” is some of the first footage I have seen from this journey, and it is shocking. The film offers an up-close look at the hardships of the journey from the physical challenges, to their emotional and mental struggles.
The main story of this documentary is about Pastor Seungeun Kim who has been helping North Korean refugees through the perilous Modern-Day Underground Railroad since 2000. In the movie, he helps a family, a father, mother, two daughters, and a grandmother through China. Together, they escape North Korea into China and are looking for people to help them to escape to Thailand, where they will receive refugee status. North Koreans are extremely vulnerable in China because they have no human rights and most are sold into China’s expansive sex trade industry.
If you have read the harrowing tales of North Koreans on our website, this film will add incredible color and detail to these stories. We can tell you about the routes, the dangers, and what the refugees' memories are of their journeys. But the film gives the viewer a look at the beads of sweat that fall down the face of Pastor Kim and the families that he is helping along the way. It details the unpaved terrain through thick jungle that most of the 33,000 refugees in South Korea had to crawl through.
In one scene, the group is making its way through the Laotian jungle and Pastor Kim, a man who was in his 50s at the time of filming, looks absolutely exhausted. He sits down along the way and it appears as if he cannot make it another step. Somehow, he finds the strength to carry on. The grandmother of the party walks with a limp, she walks slowly up and down stairs in their well-maintained stopping point in Laos. She too must walk up and down unpaved, often slippery, terrain for hours on end. The children, who mostly are carried on their parents’ backs, often get cut by the overgrowth of the jungle.
One of the most dramatic moments of the documentary is an interview with the grandmother of the party. In Laos, far from the North Korean regime, they ask her what her thoughts are about the North Korean leadership, in particular, Kim Jong-un. She says that Kim Jong-un is a hard worker and that he cares for his people. Her daughter then whispers in her ear and says that she doesn’t have to say that anymore, and that they are free to express their true opinion about their leadership. The grandmother continues in her praise of the leadership and says that the only reason she escaped was because she wanted to stay with her family.
The family makes it to South Korea. We can see their new, clean apartment and the children playing. The grandmother seems to have made a shift in her thinking about the regime. She expresses her gratitude for her new country and how she would never be able to live like this in her old one.
I highly recommend this documentary to anyone who is interested in the plight of North Korean refugees. It is worthy of the praise that it has received and adds a healthy dose of humanness to the perilous journey that readers of our website know so well.
